The woman who greets me at Addis Ababa airport is very different from the traumatised girl I last saw in 1998. When I hugged Aberash Bekele goodbye 16 years ago, I had just finished filming a BBC documentary about her called Schoolgirl Killer. At 14, Bekele was kidnapped by a gang of horsemen, raped and then put on trial for killing her abductor. Her story forced Ethiopia to confront its brutal customs and change its laws. Today she’s the mother of a 10-year-old son;  she’s plumper, her hair is hennaed and styled, her shoes sparkly, her nails varnished gold. Her story has now been made into a feature film called Difret. Executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Difret has already won awards at the Sundance, Berlin, Montreal and Amsterdam film festivals and Bekele is once again the talk of the nation.

Bekele is one of 11 children (now aged between 52 and 19) by the same mother and grew up outside Kersa, a small remote town in Arsii, southern Ethiopia, where her parents are subsistence farmers. She was on her way home from school when horsemen with whips and lassoos surrounded her, grabbed her, threw her over a saddle and took her to a hut where she was locked up and raped. Her rapist then announced he was her husband-to-be. In Arsii it was the custom that if you wanted a wife you went out and kidnapped one and it’s estimated that, in 1998, 30% of marriages were initiated this way, with varying levels of violence.

Bekele escaped, stealing the guard’s gun. When her abductor and his men gave chase, she threatened to fire but they ignored her. So she pulled the trigger. Bekele was nearly murdered by the furious mob that gathered but was rescued by family friends, then arrested and put on trial. She became the first cause célèbre for the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association and was finally released on the grounds of her youth and acting in self-defence. Despite her release, Bekele was exiled by the Kersa elders who didn’t recognise the courts. Unable to return to her family, and in danger from revenge threats by her dead abductor’s family, she fled to Addis.

When Schoolgirl Killer aired on the BBC in 1999, it struck a chord with the British public, who sent in enough money to send Bekele to a safe boarding school to finish her education. I lost touch with her until last year when an Ethiopian cameraman alerted me to Difret. I went to see it at the London Film Festival. Centre stage, as the main character, rather than Bekele, was Meaza Ashenafi, the then head of the Women Lawyers’ Association, whom I had interviewed for Schoolgirl Killer. The producers had changed Bekele’s name, but some scenes in the film were almost identical to Schoolgirl Killer. I found Bekele and flew to Addis.

Bekele now works there for Harmee, an NGO that aims to eliminate violence against women in Arsii. Dr Daniel Keftassa, who founded Harmee in 2006, picked me up from the airport with Bekele and we made the five-hour drive to Kersa, where Harmee has its headquarters, and where Bekele’s family still lives. On the way, she told me about the film. She was never consulted during its making, and when she found out about it and confronted Ashenafi and the producers, they told her the film was not about her.

Rounds of legal negotiation followed but no-one agreed to put Bekele’s name on the film. So, on the night of the film’s première, she obtained a last minute court injunction to stop it being screened. The producers had just screened Jolie’s televised address, in which she said that Difret was based on the “untold story of Aberash Bekele,” when she arrived with the necessary papers. Bekele ultimately signed an agreement, which means she feels unable to complain or take further action. Meanwhile, the film was temporarily released in Ethiopia but blocked again by the children of Bekele’s defence barrister. The film’s producers did not respond to a request for comment nor did Jolie’s personal assistant acknowledge receipt of emails.

Bekele, Keftassa and I arrived in Kersa. Apart from a new mosque, it’s the same shambles of mud and corrugated iron shacks strung along a few dirt roads. We went immediately to see Bekele’s family, who live a walk away from a new dirt road in a thatched hut on their farm. After eating, we sat around a fire under the stars. The grandchildren began dancing as one of the daughters beat out a rhythm on a plastic jerrycan and the family sung traditional Oromo songs. Bekele looked happy as she sat in her father’s embrace, a small nephew on her knee. Her brother told me about the day she was abducted. He was in the same class at school and went home early. As he cradled his infant son, it clearly still haunted him that he was unable to protect his sister.  

Aberash Bekele with her father and family members today.Aberash Bekele Personal Photo

After Bekele’s high profile case, abductions dropped in Arsii; none were reported for five years. Bekele’s older sister Mestawet is now 50. She was also abducted into marriage at 14. When we filmed her for Schoolgirl Killer, she was living in a hovel that also served as a bar, pouring home-brewed Arak to men, bringing up four small children. She had been a contemporary of the athlete Derartu Tulu, the first black African woman to win an Olympic gold at Barcelona in 1992. Mestawet, too, had been picked to run for her country and had been about to depart when she was kidnapped. Though she later left her husband, the elders persuaded her to return. She is now a grandmother and lives in a small new house running Harmee’s compound for Keftassa. Her eldest daughter is at college studying IT, the youngest at school. “I was married against my will so I will never be satisfied or happy but things are much better,” she said. “Kidnapping here has been minimised. Bekele paved the way because men started to be scared of what girls can do but only some have really changed their minds.”

The impact of Bekele’s high-profile case was immediate, but in the last few years abductions are back to seven or eight a year and late last year a 14-year-old was kidnapped. When her abductor tried to rape her, the girl fought so hard that he enlisted his friend to help tie her up. He kept her bound and hidden in the forest for a month, repeatedly raping her. To end the torture, the girl agreed to marry him. At the earliest opportunity, she stole his mobile and called her brother. Her abductor was given 17 years in jail. Bekele applauds the sentence but worries, like her sister, about whether the male mindset has truly changed. “How could that man have thought the girl would want to be his wife after what he did to her? Shame on him!” she said.

Bekele is now determined to change the violent customs that have scarred her life. Her work with Keftassa and Harmee is already yielding results in Arsii, where more girls are being educated and learning to stand up against the traditions that have subdued them for so long. Recently another girl was grabbed, hurled into a horse-drawn cart and driven off, but she screamed so loudly and the local women were so alert to abductions that they gave chase. The kidnappers threw the girl out of the cart. She was severely injured but her abductor was sent to jail for 12 years.

One night in Kersa, Bekele, Keftassa and I sat talking until late, reminiscing about the day she finally obtained the court order that ruined the film’s première. “I counted 11 big Mercedeses dropping off actors that night,” remembers Keftassa. “They swept up the red carpet, so high, so honoured, to meet Meaza and other important people. Meanwhile, far from the celebrations, running around out there seeking justice was Aberash. Aberash! The one who went through all the pain and all the trauma. I despair of people’s greed and ego that they can say it’s not her story.”

The film’s producers have now invited Bekele to Los Angeles in December, but she has been refused a visa. Though the film continues to be blocked in Ethiopia, distribution deals have been secured throughout Europe and Jolie enthused about its forthcoming release in the UK, when she hosted a special screening of the film during the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, which she co-chaired with the British foreign secretary William Hague. She  reportedly said, “I cried for the first 20 minutes and then I smiled for the rest of it thinking I can’t wait for the world to see it because it will make a change.”

Of course, any change that helps end violence towards girls is welcome. While anyone to whom the cause of Ethiopa’s young women is important applauds the makers of the film for their good work, Bekele remains without a credit on the film. Today, she could be bathing in the glow of international admiration for her extraordinary courage and resilience. Instead she is invisible, her story taken.

“I feel doubly abducted,” she said. 

Updated | Shots and explosions have reportedly broken out in Dammartin-en-Goele, where suspects in the Charlie Hebdo massacre are believed to have taken at least one hostage. Smoke was seen rising from a printworks in the area, where the two men are thought to be hiding. Counter-terror officers were seen approaching the building.

Gunshots and explosions heard in #Dammartinhttp://t.co/LdSF5QeCivpic.twitter.com/VoqNdOeYfm

— FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) January 9, 2015

Over 88,000 officials are involved in capturing suspects from both hostage situations in Dammartin-en-Goele and porte de Vincennes at this time.

Plus de 88 000 personnels sont engagés sur l'ensemble du territoire #CharlieHebdo#Montrougehttp://t.co/WfctB5NLSxpic.twitter.com/tgr3pUmxV3

— Ministère Intérieur (@Place_Beauvau) January 8, 2015

At least one hostage was seized in a town northeast of Paris on Friday during a huge manhunt for two brothers suspected of killing 12 people at a satirical weekly, according to a police source.

The French government said there was little doubt that it had located the two main suspects in the Charlie Hebdo killings at a light industrial unit in northern France where police sources said earlier a hostage-taking was going on.

"We are almost certain it is those two individuals holed up in that building," Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told iTELE television this morning.

Five helicopters were seen flying over an industrial zone outside the town of Dammartin-en-Goele and the French Interior Minister confirmed an operation was taking place there. A police source said the two suspects had been sighted in the town, where at least one person was taken hostage.

Before night fell on Thursday, officers had been focusing on their search some 40 km (25 miles) away on the woodland village of Corcy, not far from a service station where police sources said the brothers had been sighted in ski masks a day after the shootings at the newspaper.

The fugitive suspects are French-born sons of Algerian-born parents, both in their early 30s, and already under police surveillance. One was jailed for 18 months for trying to travel to Iraq a decade ago to fight as part of an Islamist cell. Police said they were "armed and dangerous".

U.S. and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday that one of the brothers, Said Kouachi, was in Yemen in 2011 for several months training with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most active affiliates.

A Yemeni official familiar with the matter said the Yemen government was aware of the possibility of a connection between Said Kouachi and AQAP, and was looking into any possible links.

U.S. government sources said Said Kouachi and his brother Cherif Kouachi were listed in two U.S. security databases, a highly classified database containing information on 1.2 million possible counter-terrorism suspects, called TIDE, and the much smaller "no fly" list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, an interagency unit.

U.S. television network ABC reported that the brothers had been listed in the databases for "years."

Dave Joly, a spokesman for the Terrorist Screening Center, said he could neither confirm nor deny if the Kouachis were listed in counter-terrorism databases.

While world leaders described Wednesday's attack on the weekly newspaper Cahrlie Hebdo as an assault on democracy, al Qaeda's North Africa branch praised the gunmen as "knight(s) of truth".

Charlie Hebdo, where journalists were gunned down during an editorial meeting, had been firebombed in the past for printing cartoons that poked fun at militant Islam and some that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.

Members of the French gendarmerie intervention forces arrive at the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris January 9, 2015. Christian Hartmann/REUTERS

Two of those killed were police posted to protect the paper.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit to the French Embassy in Washington to pay his respects.

He wrote in a condolence book: "As allies across the centuries, we stand united with our French brothers to ensure that justice is done and our way of life is defended. We go forward together knowing that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for - ideals that light the world."

Amid local media reports of isolated incidents of violence directed at Muslims in France, President Francois Hollande and his Socialist government have called on the French not to blame the Islam faith for the Charlie Hebdo killings.

Hollande has held talks with opposition leaders and, in a rare move, was due to invite Marine Le Pen, leader of the resurgent anti-immigrant National Front, to his Elysee Palace for discussions on Friday.

MOURNING

Bewildered and tearful French people held a national day of mourning on Thursday. The bells of Notre Dame pealed for those killed in the attack on the left-leaning slayer of sacred cows whose cartoonists have been national figures since the Parisian counter-cultural heyday of the 1960s and 1970s.

Many European newspapers either re-published Charlie Hebdo cartoons or lampooned the killers with images of their own.

Searches were taking place in Corcy and the nearby village of Longpont, set in thick forest and boggy marshland about 70 km north of Paris, but it was not clear whether the fugitives who had been spotted in the area were holed up or had moved on.

Corcy residents looked bewildered as heavily armed policeman in ski masks and helmets combed the village meticulously from houses to garages and barns.

"We're hearing that the men could be in the forest, but there's no information so we're watching television to see," said Corcy villager Jacques.

In neighboring Longpont, a resident said police had told villagers to stay indoors because the gunmen may have abandoned their car there. Anti-terrorism officers pulled back as darkness fell. The silence ‎was broken by the sound of a forest owl.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, asked on RTL radio on Thursday whether he feared a further attack, said: "That's obviously our main concern and that is why thousands of police and investigators have been mobilized to catch these individuals."

SUSPECT JAILED

Police released photographs of the two suspects, Cherif and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34. The brothers were born in eastern Paris and grew up in an orphanage in the western city of Rennes after their parents died.

The younger brother's jail sentence for trying to fight in Iraq a decade ago, and more recent tangles with the authorities over suspected involvement in militant plots, raised questions over whether police could have done more to watch them.

Cherif Kouachi was arrested on Jan. 25, 2005 preparing to fly to Syria en route to Iraq. He served 18 months of a three-year sentence.

"He was part of a group of young people who were a little lost, confused, not really fanatics in the proper sense of the word," lawyer Vincent Ollivier, who represented Cherif in the case, told Liberation daily.

In 2010 he was suspected of being part of a group that tried to break from prison Smain Ali Belkacem, a militant jailed for the 1995 bombings of Paris train and metro stations that killed eight people and wounded 120. The case against Cherif Kouachi was dismissed for lack of evidence.

In the wake of the killings, authorities tightened security at transport hubs, religious sites, media offices and stores. Police also increased their presence at entry points to Paris.

The defense ministry said it sent 200 extra soldiers from parachute regiments across the country to help guard Paris.

Le Figaro newspaper reported that the interior ministry had been inundated with dozens of requests for police protection from "personalities feeling in danger", citing a high-ranking police official.

For years, the radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri delivered incendiary sermons at a London mosque, using words that U.S. and UK authorities say helped inspire a generation of militants, including British would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid.

On Friday, he will have one final chance to convince a U.S. judge that he should not spend the rest of his life in prison, eight months after a federal jury in New York convicted him of terrorism charges.

Abu Hamza, 56, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan at 10 a.m. to be sentenced.

The one-eyed, handless Abu Hamza gained notoriety for his fiery rhetoric and use of a hook in place of his missing right hand. He was found guilty of providing a satellite phone and advice to Yemeni militants who kidnapped Western tourists in 1998. Four hostages died in the operation.

He was also convicted of sending two followers to Oregon to establish a militant training camp and of dispatching an associate to Afghanistan to aid al Qaeda and the Taliban against the United States.

In their sentencing recommendation to Judge Katherine Forrest, lawyers for Abu Hamza focused on his need for specialized medical care as a double amputee.

While they asked for a term shorter than life, they conceded that any lengthy sentence would likely keep him behind bars until his death and pressed Forrest to send Abu Hamza to a medical facility instead of a maximum security prison.

Prosecutors urged a life sentence for a man they called a "global terrorist leader who orchestrated plots around the world" and said in court papers that the question of where Abu Hamza is imprisoned should be left to the Bureau of Prisons.

Abu Hamza, whose real name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, testified in his defense at trial. He denied he sent anyone to Oregon or Afghanistan and claimed he acted as an intermediary during the Yemen kidnapping in search of a peaceful resolution.

He also asserted for the first time that he lost his hands in an accidental explosion two decades ago in Pakistan, where he said he was working as an engineer, contradicting widespread reports that he lost the limbs while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Abu Hamza spent eight years in prison in Britain for inciting violence before his extradition in 2012 to the United States to face terrorism charges.

Al Qaeda militants in Syria are plotting attacks to inflict mass casualties in the West, possibly against transport systems or "iconic targets", the head of Britain's MI5 Security Service said on Thursday.

Speaking after gunmen killed 12 people in an assault on a French satirical newspaper, MI5 boss Andrew Parker warned a strike on the United Kingdom was highly likely.

"A group of core al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West," Director General Parker said in a rare public speech at MI5 headquarters in London. His last public speech was in October 2013.

In the speech, planned before the killings in Paris, Parker said seasoned al Qaeda militants in Syria aimed to "cause large-scale loss of life, often by attacking transport systems or iconic targets" in the West.

Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people by attacking the United States with hijacked passenger planes on September 11, 2001. Militants inspired by the group killed 52 commuters in London on July 7, 2005 with suicide bombs.

Al Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in 2011, and the threat posed by the network to the West seemed to recede in recent years.

But spies in Europe and the United States have been troubled that al Qaeda militants from Pakistan have appeared in war torn Syria, in what some intelligence analysts say could be part of a plot to mount a major attack against the West.

Thursday's stark warning from one of the West's most influential spymasters mirrors a growing concern among Western political leaders and their Arab allies about the threat from the cauldron of militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

"DARK PLACES"

Parker said around 600 British extremists had traveled to Syria, many joining the militant group which calls itself "Islamic State" and has taken control of swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The group, an offshoot of al Qaeda, has beheaded two U.S. journalists and an American and two British aid workers in an effort to put pressure on a U.S.-led international coalition bombing its fighters in Syria.

Islamic State militants in Syria were plotting attacks on Britain and making sophisticated use of social media to incite British nationals to carry out violence, Parker said.

MI5, established in 1909 to counter German espionage ahead of World War One, had stopped three potentially deadly "terrorist plots" against the United Kingdom in recent months, he said.

"We face a very serious level of threat that is complex to combat and unlikely to abate significantly for some time," said Parker, who has argued strongly for more surveillance powers to spy on militant communications on the Internet.

He said that the security services needed to have access to such communications.

"My sharpest concern as Director General of MI5 is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it," he said.

Twitter and Facebook are so important to militants that technology giants should give security services greater access to their networks, the head of Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency said last year.

"The dark places from where those who wish us harm can plot and plan are increasing," Parker said. "We need to be able to access communications and obtain relevant data on those people when we have good reason."

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa lost his bid for a third term on Friday, ending a decade of rule that critics say had become increasingly authoritarian and marred by nepotism and corruption.

Opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena, a one-time ally of Rajapaksa who defected in November and derailed what the president thought would be an easy win, took 51.3 percent of the votes polled in Thursday's election.

Rajapaksa got 47.6 percent, according to the Election Department.

Celebratory firecrackers were set off in the capital, Colombo, after Rajapaksa accepted the victory of Sirisena, who has vowed to root out corruption and bring constitutional reforms to weaken the power of the presidency.

Sri Lanka's stock market climbed to its highest in nearly four years.

"We expect a life without fear," said Fathima Farhana, a 27-year-old Muslim woman in Colombo.

"I voted for him because he said he will create equal opportunities for all," she said of Sirisena, a soft-spoken 63-year-old from the rice-growing hinterlands of the Indian Ocean island state.

Like Rajapaksa, Sirisena is from the majority Sinhala Buddhist community but he has reached out to ethnic minority Tamils and Muslims and has the support of several small parties.

His allies say he will rebalance the country's foreign policy, which tilted heavily towards China in recent years as Rajapaksa fell out with the West over human rights and allegations of war crimes committed at the end of a drawn-out conflict with Tamil separatists in 2009.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was quick to welcome the successful election and commended Rajapaksa for accepting the verdict of the nation's 15 million voters.

"I look forward to working with President-elect Sirisena as his new government works to implement its campaign platform of a Sri Lanka that is peaceful, inclusive, democratic, and prosperous," Kerry said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned Sirisena to congratulate the new leader of "a close friend and neighbor".

Sri Lanka is just off India's southern coast and has historically had mixed ties with its much larger neighbor. Rajapaksa had cold-shouldered New Delhi in recent years but Sirisena told an Indian newspaper this week that "we will revert to the old, non-aligned policy".

"India is our first, main concern. But we are not against Chinese investment either. We will maintain good relations with China too," he told the Hindustan Times.

Motley Coalition

Sirisena is expected to be sworn in at Colombo's Independence Square at 6:00 p.m. (7.30 a.m. EST).

The results showed Rajapaksa remained popular among Sinhala Buddhists, who account for about 70 percent of the country's 21 million people, but Sirisena earned his lead with the support of the ethnic Tamil-dominated former war zone in the north and Muslim-dominated areas.

Rajapaksa won handsomely in the last election in 2010, surfing a wave of popularity months after the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels.

But critics say he had become increasingly authoritarian, with several members of his family holding powerful positions. Although the economy had blossomed since the end of the war, voters complained of the high cost of living.

Rajapaksa had called this election two years early, confident that the usually fractured opposition would fail to come up with a credible candidate. But he did not anticipate the emergence of Sirisena, who shared a traditional Sri Lankan dinner with him one evening and turned on him the next day.

Sirisena will lead a motley coalition of ethnic, religious, Marxist and center-right parties, which analysts say could hamper economic reform and encourage populist policies.

He has pledged to abolish the executive presidency that gave Rajapaksa unprecedented power and hold a fresh parliamentary election within 100 days.

He has also promised a crackdown on corruption, which would include investigations into big infrastructure projects such as a $1.5 billion deal with China Communications Construction Co Ltd to build a port city.

It is not clear if the port, to be built on land reclaimed from the sea in Colombo, will be canceled.

However, Sirisena's backers have said a casino license given to Australian gambling tycoon James Packer's Crown Resorts Ltd will be withdrawn.

Indonesia search and rescue teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet detected pings in their efforts to find the black box flight recorders on Friday, an official said, 12 days after the plane went missing with 162 people on board.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens on Dec. 28, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors.

Forty-eight bodies, including at least two still strapped to their seats, have been found in waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have hampered efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.

The Airbus A320-200 carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders near the tail section. Officials had warned, however, that they could have become separated from the tail.

Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, said it appeared that the flight recorders were no longer in the tail.

"We received an update from the field that the pinger locator already detected pings," he told Reuters.

"We have our fingers crossed it is the black box. Divers need to confirm. Unfortunately it seems it's off from the tail. But the divers need to confirm the position."

The tail was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane's last known location at a depth of around 30 meters.

Indonesian search teams loaded lifting balloons on to helicopters on Friday ahead of an operation to raise the tail.

The head of the search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, said he assumed the flight recorders were still in the tail and that reports they had separated had yet to be confirmed.

"The divers are tying the tail with straps and then we will try (to lift it) two ways - floating balloons combined with cranes, so that the tail sector wouldn't be damaged," he told reporters. "Because we assume the black box is in the tail sector."

He said two bodies had been found still attached to their seats, with local television reporting that one of the recovered seats was from the cockpit.

"Looking for victims is still our main priority besides the black box," he said.

Relatives of the victims have urged authorities to make finding the remains of their loved ones the priority.

Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by the Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since the crash.

The transport ministry has suspended the carrier's Surabaya-Singapore license, saying it only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.

While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal tropical storms common in the area were likely to be a factor.

The siege at a kosher grocery in Porte de Vincennes has reportedly ended, with French security source saying that the hostage-taker has been "neutralised". Le Monde newspaper has said that the man killed is Amedy Coulibaly - a suspect in the shooting of a policewoman yesterday in Paris.

Several explosions were heard, as well as gunfire and Sky News showed footage of a huge amount of police activity in the area minutes after, with ambulances and police vans arriving.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) have said that several of those hostages have now been freed although a police source has said that four hostages were killed.

Police hacked into CCTV and also received information from employees in the building who managed to use their phones.

The BBC have reported that at least two people were killed earlier in a shooting the grocery store which is in eastern Paris according to a police officer at the scene.

However, Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister denied this.

Associate Press (AP) reported that the hostage taker said he would kill hostages if French police stormed the building where the Kourachi brothers, responsible for Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo, were holed up in an industrial area near Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris.

France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor had earlier confirmed that an armed man had taken at least five people hostage in the grocery, which is called Hyper Cacher. Police blocked off the roads near the shop, and surrounded the building. Nearby school were put into lockdown.

AP also reported that the police ordered all the other shops in the Porte de Vincennes area to close, in light of the siege.

Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister issued a statement saying that the attacks in Paris “are not just against the French people or French Jews, they’re against the entire free world. “This is another attempt by the dark forces of radical Islam to unleash horror and terror on the West. The entire international community must stand strong and determined in the face of this terror.”

Police surround Paris supermarket where gunman reported to be holding hostage http://t.co/jMOZXPaSOJ#CharlieHebdopic.twitter.com/ab3Na0ciH7

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 9, 2015

It’s believed that the gunman was the same one who was involved in the fatal shooting of Clarissa Jean-Philippe - the policewoman who was killed on Thursday morning in the city.

The police released the names and mugshots of a man and women who are wanted in connection with that shooting.

They have been named as Amedy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene and the French police have warned that they are dangerous and possibly armed. According to BFM TV the gunmen said to police “You know who I am”.

The president of the synagogue in Vincennes had said authorities had informed him that there were between five and eight people being held hostage in the shop.

One witness spoke to RTL radio this morning saying: "I can see the police in front of the grocery. One of them has a megaphone and is ordering people away from the scene. There are no cars on the roads - they have all been stopped."

French newspaper Le Figaro reported that Bernard Cazeneuve had made his way to the scene while Elysee’s Twitter account published a photo of French president Francois Hollande overseeing both operations from a situation room on Friday morning.

A picture was posted on Twitter which supposedly showed the siege unfolding:

Face à #hypercasherà #saintmandepic.twitter.com/iYYr3NxanO

— david_dlr (@daviddlr) January 9, 2015

On Friday morning French police had said that they were officially linking yesterday’s shooting with the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, saying that the gunman, who fled the scene, was from the same jihadist group as the Kourachi brothers. It's now believed that the brothers have been killed after police stormed the building where they were. 

This is a developing news story and will be updated throughout the day. 

This past November, Russia’s Berlin ambassador, Vladimir Grinin, invited two representatives of the surging new party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) for a meeting. According to German news media, Grinin offered the party strategic advice. In an email to Newsweek, the embassy declined to comment on the meeting, but one of the guests was more forthcoming. “The background is that [the tabloid] Bildreported that [Vladimir] Putin was trying to influence AfD by offering us loans and gold bars, but we were unaware of any such attempts,” explains Christian Lüth, the party’s communications director. “We even double-checked our gold inventory, but there’s nothing there from Russia. So I called up [Grinin], who said that he doesn’t comment on news stories but that he’d be happy to meet. We spoke about our respective positions on different issues, but that’s something we do with many ambassadors.” Other political parties do the same with various ambassadors, Lüth notes.

Nevertheless, news of the meeting raised eyebrows around Europe. A couple of months earlier, Grinin had had two other AfD politicians over for a meeting. Also last autumn, the Russian-affiliated First Czech Russian Bank gave a €9.4m loan to the French right-wing party Front National, and FN leader Marine Le Pen visited Moscow to discuss policy issues with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and other officials. The leader of Austria Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, also visited the Russian capital on a self-described confidence-building mission. Then, after a recent visit to Crimea and Moscow, where he met with top officials, Italian far-right party Lega Nord’s leader, Matteo Salvini, praised the Russian capital’s safe underground system and announced that “Russia wants dialogue”. Finally, Jobbik, which became Hungary’s third largest party in last year’s elections, maintains particularly close relations with the Kremlin. In a recent speech in Moscow, Jobbik party leader, Gábor Vona, denounced the US as “the deformed offspring of Europe”, and the party’s chief foreign policy expert, Béla Kovács, has even been accused of spying for Russia.

Kovács is an MEP. So are two fellow Jobbik members, five Lega Nord members, four from FPÖ, three from Greece’s Golden Dawn, two from the far-right Sweden Democrats, one from Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and  23 members of FN, now France’s largest party in the EU’s legislating body. In addition to these committed supporters of Russia, the current European Parliament comprises parties such as Poland’s Nowa Prawica and Britain’s UKIP, which maintain an open attitude towards the superpower in the East. In fact, nowhere does Russia have more elected friends than in the EU’s legislative body. And while Moscow’s interest in European fringe parties isn’t news, their political clout is. “One fifth of MEPs now belong to radical, fringe and non-mainstream parties,” explains Péter Krekó, director of Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based research group, and author of a recent report on Russia’s connections with European radicals. “By maintaining close connections with these parties, Russia can destabilise Europe from within, now especially in the European Parliament, and at the same time legitimise Russia’s actions.”

The friendship goes beyond kind words. Last spring MEPs and national politicians from mostly radical parties travelled to Crimea to observe the disputed annexation referendum, roundly declaring it free and fair. “What I saw was that residents were really free to vote the way they wanted,” reports Fabrizio Bertot, an Italian MEP from the centre-right, who observed both the referendum and the elections in eastern Ukraine. “I spoke with people in Crimea, including the Italian community there, and it was a fair vote. The legal aspects of the referendum are the domain of international institutions, and it’s not my job to determine whether these votes were legitimate or not. But the political aspect, the will of the people, is important too.” Instead of criticising Russia, says Bertot, the West should engage in dialogue. (And the sanctions are hurting Italy’s cheese exports.)

Lega Nord's leader Matteo Salvini.Peter Dazeley/Getty

Kovács, too, belonged to the Crimea observer group, as did Aymeric Chauprade, an MEP for FN, Austrian MEP Ewald Stadler, members of Germany’s post-Communist Die Linke as well as members of FPÖ, Lega Nord and assorted other far-right and far-left parties. They observed the referendum even though the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which ordinarily supplies election observers, had dismissed it as illegal. “The people of eastern Ukraine are Russian, and they accepted to stay in Ukraine,” says Bertot, who describes himself as “pro-Italian, not pro-Russian”. “When they saw that the Ukrainian government was pursuing stronger relations with the EU, they said, ‘We don’t want to be like Greece; it’s better to be with Russia’.” Kovács and Chauprade did not respond to interview requests.

One fifth of MEPs is far from a majority, but surging radical parties are beginning to shape the public debate. “We, the mainstream, are stuck,” says Indrek Tarand, an Estonian MEP and former presidential candidate. “We keep repeating the same phrases, such as ‘We need more Europe’, which makes us seem like we’re from another planet. If we had more inspirational leadership, we could invite them to a discussion and wear them out.” When the Council of Europe suspended Russia last autumn, Jobbik and Die Linke representatives voted against the move.

Friendship with Russia can be a matter of convenience; Krekó notes that in Jobbik’s early, cash-strapped days, Kovács provided money then steered the party in a pro-Russian direction. (A Jobbik spokesperson was not immediately available for an interview.) It other cases, it’s based on  ideological affinity, with both the far left and the far right finding aspects to admire in Putin’s Russia. Either way, it’s a win-win.

Political Kinship: As Front National confirmed that it had taken a €9.4m loan from the First Czech Russian bank in Moscow, Russia's link with Europe's far right is alarming to some. Peter Dazeley/Getty

And while the large pro-Moscow contingent in Brussels and Strasbourg can affect European unity, in some capitals their power is far more concrete. Bulgaria’s far-right Ataka, which was founded in 2005 and won 5% of the vote in this year’s parliamentary elections, vowed to topple the government if it backed sanctions against Russia and unabashedly professes its allegiance to Moscow. It is touching a nerve: in a poll earlier this year, 22% of Bulgarians said they’d vote to join Putin’s Eurasian Union, while 40% supported EU membership.

Given the collective lament of far-right parties over eastern-European immigrants, Bulgarians’ interest in the Eurasian Union may not be all that surprising. And, on a national level, Serbia, which seems to be getting a cold shoulder from the EU, is pursuing friendship with Russia. “The government is paying lip service to EU integration because that’s what’s keeping it in power, but at the same time it’s opening a space in Serbian society for Russia,” argues Jelena Milić, director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, a Belgrade think tank. “Formally our EU admission process is ongoing, but now we’re getting negative messages from the EU regarding our political harmonisation [with the EU]. It’s in that context that Russia is presenting itself as an attractive option.” On a visit to Serbia last autumn, Putin promised to support it on the divisive issue of Kosovo. Russia Today, Russia’s fast-growing news service, is due to open an office in Belgrade next spring.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić, leader of the post-Communist SPS party and nominally pro-EU, now makes regular trips to Moscow, including one in October and one just before Christmas. “Moscow plans to develop global security cooperation with its traditional ally Serbia,” Russia’s foreign ministry announced after Dačić’s December meetings. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, dismissed as “neo-colonial slang” EU leaders’ concerns that Russia is exerting pressure on Serbia. “SPS is essentially in power because [Russian energy giant Gazprom] installed them and because our crooked political system that enables them to raid local authorities,” says Milić. “Since the Russians installed them, of course they have to defend Russia.” A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for an interview with Dačić.

Radical parties concerned about eastern European immigrants on one hand, a strategic eastern European country growing closer to Moscow on the other: with the European dream of unity in tatters, Russia’s eclectic friendship strategy is working. And if the financial aspect doesn’t violate party financing laws, what’s wrong with such relationships? Countries from the US to China maintain contacts with political parties abroad, and especially following the fall of communism, Western money flowed freely to new parties. “If we say that American money is OK, why not Russian money?” asks Tarand. “Who decides which money stinks? This is why Estonian lawmakers have banned foreign donations.” Le Pen explained that FN accepted its Russian loan because French banks had turned the party down.

Lüth, while emphasising that AfD gets neither money nor advice from Moscow, says he understands why people might suspect such goings-on: “I can see how people would get the idea that we would be a target for Russian financial support, but we’re obviously not as radical as the FN. And we don’t need financial support.” That raises the obvious question: if institutions at home gave parties like FN a warmer embrace, would the allure of Moskva fade?

Nearly one-third of college men admit they might rape a woman if they could get away with it, a new study on campus sexual assault claims. Of those men, however, far fewer will admit this if the word rape is actually used during the course of questioning.

Approximately 32 percent of study participants said that they would have “intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse” if ‘‘nobody would ever know and there wouldn’t be any consequences.’’ Yet only 13.6 percent admit to having “any intentions to rape a woman” under these same circumstances. With the exception of one survey that was not counted because of inconclusive answers, all of the men who admitted to rape intentions also admitted to forced intercourse intentions. (Worth noting: Though the legal definition of rapevaries from state to state, these researchers are using the widely agreed upon definition of the word as “intercourse by use of force or threat of force against a victim’s wishes.”)

The paper, “Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders,” was released recently in the journal Violence and Gender. The research comes amid heightened scrutiny of how institutions of higher learning handle sexual assault on campus. Though there is not an exact number, research such as the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Study suggests that as many as 20 percent of undergraduate women suffer sexual assault.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, almost 20 percent of women in the United States have suffered rape. The survey also notes that some 43.9 percent of women “experienced other forms of sexual violence during their lifetimes, including being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences.”

Earlier research has also come to the conclusion that “when survey items describe behaviors...instead of simply label[ling] them...more men will admit to sexually coercive behaviors in the past and more women will self-report past victimization,” the researchers write. But the new study, led by Sarah R. Edwards, an assistant professor of counseling psychology at the University of North Dakota, dives deeper into attitudes behind this discrepancy.

The researchers asked the study participants whether they endorsed forced sex and whether they endorsed rape, as well as a number of questions meant to gauge their levels of hostility and sexual callousness toward women. They found that those men willing to admit to intentions to rape harbored hostility—such as the belief that women are manipulative or deceitful—and had “angry and unfriendly” attitudes toward women.

Meanwhile, the men who admitted to an intention to rape only if it’s described as an “intention to use force” tended to have callous sexual attitudes, described in the study as viewpoints that “objectify women and expect men to exhibit sexual dominance.”

“Those people that do say that they might use force to have sex with someone, but they wouldn’t call it rape, they seem to exhibit high levels of callous sexual attitudes and almost the opposite of hostility,” says Edwards. In the study, the authors say this group appears to be hyper-masculine; in other words, they might think that acting sexually aggressively is the right way for a man to act.

Edwards cautions that this research is preliminary, because the sample group is very small: 86 men participated in the study, but only 73 were analyzed due to missing data. Because more than 90 percent of the participants were white and all described themselves as heterosexual, the study has demographic limitations. The team hopes to conduct this research on a larger scale, Edwards says. In the meantime, “the No. 1 point is there are people that will say they would force a woman to have sex but would deny they would rape a woman,” Edwards tells Newsweek.

Psychologist David Lisak, a forensic consultant and law enforcement trainer renowned for his research on sexual violence, who notably determined that some 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by repeat offenders, says the study might help scholars ask more effective questions when they research campus rape.

Like the researchers, Lisak believes that the study emphasizes the need to address sexual callousness in rape prevention efforts.

“When you assess male college students, you will find some very, very troubling attitudes and beliefs,” he tells Newsweek. “Regardless of whether or not these contribute directly to sexual coercion...challenging them and addressing them and educating students about them is absolutely critical.”

Lisak says researchers must study whether campus rape prevention programs that address these attitudes correlate with a decrease in sex assaults.

“If it’s possible to reduce some sexual violence by really comprehensively addressing these attitudes, that would be terrific,” Lisak says. “And even if we can’t, if the real core offenders are proven to be intractable, that kind of education and prevention work is absolutely crucial, and it is absolutely worth it on its own merit.”

Big Data lets Netflix make personalized movie suggestions, helps advertisers better target consumers and can now inform your boss that you are about to quit.

That’s according to Workday, a company which says its new software, called Workday Insight Applications, gives bosses insight beyond their own powers of perception by gathering data and sending notifications to management that an employee may be on their way out.

The program is currently undergoing several months of testing by VMware, also a Palo Alto–based software company. VMware is helping Workday to discover what, if any, changes could be made to the product.

Workday says the program assesses multiple data sets in order to make its determinations. It analyzes information regarding employee activity such as hiring, promotions, relocations, raises and performance review data, and enhances these findings with trends in the industry and region like job postings, shifts in worker demand and standard of living.

In one case, Workday’s program evaluated more than 1 million data points for 100,000 employees at one business over 25 years before sending its findings to management, Bloomberg reports.

The software’s abilities can also improve over time through user feedback. By telling the program when its notifications were correct and when they were wrong, it is able to learn patterns unique to each company.

"We've had some great results to date with the data," Amy Gannaway, VMware’s senior director for worldwide human resources information systems, said at a September conference, according to Bloomberg. She added that the program gave VMware a “very high percentage” of accurate predictions for which employees would leave the company.

Once the program determines which employees may be looking to leave, it offers recommended job changes for each person.

“We think this is the first time an enterprise technology company will deliver recommendations on your next business move with the level of simplicity offered by consumer applications,” writes Dan Beck, Workday’s vice president of Technology Products, in an online explainer on the product. “[What] really makes Workday Insight Applications different [is] the recommendations and the ability to act on them in one system.”

Newsweek reached out to Workday about their product and VMware about its testing, both companies declined to comment until the product becomes available.

Workday Insight Applications is slated to launch publicly sometime in 2015. 

Evidence emerged this morning that the jihadist terror cell thought to be behind both the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the murder of a French police woman as well as the unfolding hostage situation in the east of Paris had links to the Yemeni sub-group of global militant group al-Qaeda, which shows a worrying change in tactics for the terrorist organization, experts have warned.

Eyewitnesses have reported that before the men carried out the attack on Wednesday morning, which left 12 dead, the gunmen shouted: “Tell the media that we are from al-Qaeda in the Yemen.” Corinne Rey, a cartoonist who worked at the magazine and who was forced to let the men into the building also reported that the gunmen had specified this: "They spoke French perfectly,” she said, “claiming to be al-Qaeda.”

Reuters have reported that US and European sources have disclosed that one of two Kouachi brothers suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack visited Yemen in 2011 to train with al-Qaeda-affiliated militants. The piece went on to say: “The sources said Said Kouachi, 34, was in Yemen for a number of months training with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most active affiliates.”

It's believed that Said Kouachi visited Yemen in 2011 and reportedly met with al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki while there Judicial Police of Paris

The news agency also reported that a Yemeni insider had told them that Said Kouachi, one of the brothers involved, had met with al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki while he was in the country, further evidence that the shooters did have a connection with AQAP.

This follows analysis of footage from Wednesday’s attack which has led to some believing the men were trained for such attack. Their seemingly calm demeanor, controlled movements and military-style dress sets them apart from the other ‘lone wolf’ attacks France has seen of late, such as the man who deliberately drove into a crowd in late December last year.

While details about Said and Cherif Kouachi are still coming to light, the French media have said that Cherif was imprisoned in 2008 for three years for being part of the Buttes-Chaumont network which helped send would-be militants to Iraq. Before this he had been detained in 2005 while trying to board a plane to Syria which was, at that time, a gateway country for those hoping to reach Iraq.

But it’s the connection that the brothers may have had with the Yemeni section al-Qaeda which is perhaps the most worrying association. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is mainly active in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and is considered a particularly dangerous group. Indeed, in the last few months violent attacks have increased in Yemen as AQAP battles with the Shia Houthi rebels who have taken control of the capital, Sanaa.

In November 2014, a video was released showing Nasser Bin Ali al-Ansi, a top AQAP leader, encouraging jihadi groups to carry out lone wolf attacks in Western cities. In the video al-Ansi says: "The lions of Allah, the heroes of individual jihad, who are spread out throughout the land, who are also called lone wolves, must know that they are the West's troubling nightmare… They must not have a low opinion of their actions and of their jihad … killing can be done by a thousand wounds… we urge our brothers to use this opportunity, for Allah the exalted gave them the possibility to reach the enemy’s depth and his sensitive targets."

James Fergusson, a Newsweek correspondent who has spent considerable time in Yemen, warned that if the gunmen were indeed part of the AQAP network than it would be significant. “If they are associated in the public mind with an AQ organisation - and not just any AQ organisation, but the best organised, the most deadly, and the one most feared by the CIA in the world - then that is obviously a lot more frightening and has much greater propaganda value. Which is what an attack like this is of course all about.”

He continued: “It might also be explained by a simple desire to be seen as part of a winning team - which AQAP certainly is at the moment. [AQAP] are successfully exploiting Sunni-Shia divisions in Yemen, and may possibly re-establishing themselves, and their southern sharia statelet, against the ever-weakening Hadi government. If you want a global caliphate, Yemen looks a promising place to start.”

Nigel Inkster, director of transnational threats and political risk at International Institute of Strategic Studies, noted that if al-Qaeda are involved in the attack it could be in part to compete with ISIS as it were. “We have been wondering for some time whether, faced with the challenge from IS, AQAP would seek to reassert their crdentioals. It’s a reasonable assumption that al-Qaeda would want to do that as they have somewhat lost attractiveness among the jihadist international community. While ISIS have encouraged people to undertake these kind of attacks on the West they have not carried out any themselves.”

Inkster also said that “the types of people and the types of attacks are becoming more diverse. It’s a different kind of threat that needs to be looked at.”

Robert McFadden, senior vice president of the Soufan Group which provides strategic security intelligence services to governments, also indicated that if the men are affiliated with AQAP it would indicate a worrying change in al-Qaeda’s tactics.

“It would be very significant if it turned out they were indeed connected. If we had a scenario where they’ve been in contact with core al-Qaeda guys and there was some kind of link up be that formal or quasi-formal, it would show that the al-Qaeda cause has changed. It would mean they’ve changed from staging big, explosive attacks to more tactical assassinations.”

“Al-Qaeda have been encouraging people to carry these attacks out but have yet to be officially connected with them. It would show a new avenue of approach to Islamist violence but this attack would also show both intent and capability.”

Officials in France have identified two suspects wanted for the shooting of a policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe on Thursday and reported involvement in the hostage situation ongoing at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. 

Amedy Coulibaly, 33, and Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, have been deemed "armed and dangerous" by authorities. Boumeddiene is suspected to have killed a policewoman on Thursday, a crime which police are now linking to the Charlie Hebdo massacre that left 12 dead. The gunman inside the kosher supermaket threatened to kill the hostages if police attack Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack. 

Police believe that Coulibaly is a member of the same jihadist group as Said and Cherif Kouachi who carried out the attack on the satirical magazine.

Hayat Boumeddienne et Amedy Coulibaly #Montrouge#Vincennes Cc @FrDesouchepic.twitter.com/Jzx5Rfqaa7

— Hérisson Dissident ن (@Herissident) January 9, 2015

Coulibaly may be the supermarket hostage taker, according to reports by local media. Reports are conflicting as to how many are dead and injured at the supermarket, news wire service AFP reported two deaths but a confirmed count has not been released. Six hostages are believed to have been taken. 

According to The Guardian, Coulibaly reportedly has ties to a criminal investigation that involved Cherif Kouachi, one of the gunmen suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack. Local newspaper Le Monde reports Kouachi and Coulibaly were followers of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist. According to intercepted phone conversations, the pair visited Beghal's home. 

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. 

The ever-chirping chorus of techies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, hawking their gadgets, services and Wi-Fi-enabled everything, is a vortex of cloying cyber-enthusiasm. Since I am prone to seeing much of this as ridiculous (for example, who wants a $1,200 Walkman?), much of my experience walking around this endless mire of booths was one of consternation. But even this neo-Luddite found a lot of neat things worth sharing. Without further ado, here are my picks, with an emphasis on things that haven’t already gotten a lot of press:

Zuta Labs

Picture a printer roughly the size of several iPhones stacked on top of each other—and moves as it prints. Voilà, you have Zuta Labs’s mobile printer. This device trundles back and forth over paper as it puts down ink. This little guy would make sense to own if you want a printer but don’t have enough space for one, or are constantly on the move. It can now be purchased on the company’s website, after Zuta raised more than $500,000 with a successful Kickstarter campaign.  

Zuta Labs’s small mobile printer Douglas Main for Newsweek

Mind Every Garden

Not everybody is good at taking care of plants. To get around that, a little French company called Mind Every Garden has created an automated pot that senses soil moisture and gives the plant a drink when needed. It also will soon release another product, which monitors the electric signals within plant tissue to monitor levels of pollutants like ozone. Company co-founder Franz Ezin says he is working with the city of Paris to deploy the sensors for their pollutant-sensing abilities. The Parrot Company, a completely separate entity, has made an even more advanced smart pot that senses soil nitrogen content and can be programmed, the company claims, to take care of hundreds of different plant species.

Mind Every Garden’s green plant-tethered pollution sensor. Douglas Main for Newsweek

Raticator

Rats and mice are a pain. But some people would rather not kill the little animals in a violent manner. Enter Raticator. This California company makes traps that electrocute rodents and kills them in a quick and “humane” manner, says company president Robert Noe. The floor of the Raticator is made of metal, and when a mouse or rat walks in, an infrared sensor notices its body heat and triggers a flood of current that stops the rodent’s heart and lungs. It also sends out a signal saying that it has done its job, so somebody can retrieve the unmangled carcass.

Robert Noe, president of RaticatorDouglas Main for Newsweek

gTar

Learning to play the guitar isn’t easy. California-based gTar has created a guitar with real strings overlaying a fretboard with glowing LEDs that show players where to put their fingers. It can load hundreds of popular songs by connecting to a smartphone and then shows you how to play along. You can also select a level of difficulty, increasing it as you improve.

Flir

This company has built a $249 infrared camera that connects to smartphones. The device can “see” heat by sensing infrared radiation and also has a second visible camera to distinguish writing and other surface details not typically visible with infrared cameras. Why would you want one? It has many potential uses, explains spokesman Keith Metz-Porozni, such as spotting animals or pets in the dark, or detecting cold air drafts or leaking pipes in walls. It’s also fun to take a thermal portrait of yourself, which the company dubs a “thermie.”

Blast Motion

When I say “jump,” you say “How high?” Blast Motion has created a coin-sized sensor that will tell you exactly how much air you’re getting, whether you’re jumping under your own power or on a skateboard or skis. It also registers how quickly you’re going, your rotation and a whole bunch of other metrics. The sensors can also be used on baseball bats and golf clubs to analyze your swing, and there is a smartphone app to help you correct problems with your game. An accompanying video feature allows users to film, quantify and analyze their jump, swing, running gait or other athletic maneuvers, frame by frame.

Artec Shapify

Ever wanted a miniature sculpture of yourself? Who hasn’t? This company has developed a 3-D scanner that takes a composite image of your body, including fine details such as the color and pattern of your clothing. You can then order a 3-D-printed copy of yourself, in several sizes, which the company calls a “shapie.” Even Barack Obama had a bust of himself made using the company’s technology.

A 3-D representation of the author after being scanned by Artec’s Shapify camera booth Douglas Main for Newsweek

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday approved the route for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, reversing a lower court that had blocked the proposal and clearing the way for a U.S. State Department ruling on the plan.

The court said it was divided and could not reach a substantive decision, leaving in place legislation that favored TransCanada Corp and its claim to build a crude oil pipeline across the state.

"(B)ecause there are not five judges of this court voting on the constitutionality of (the legislation), the legislation must stand by default," the court said in its ruling.

The court's decision allows the U.S. State Department to decide whether the pipeline meant to carry Canadian oil sands fuel would be in the national interest, a necessary step for the cross-border energy project.

Environmentalists oppose Keystone since it could help expand oil sands development and President Barack Obama has said he will weigh whether the project might worsen climate change.

Officials have said they could not test whether the project is in the national interest before the Nebraska Supreme Court rules and Friday's decision cleared the way for that.

Plans for a Charlie Hebdo solidarity march in Paris this Sunday organized by French President François Hollande and opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy has come under fire from leaders of France’s far-right and far-left, who have both accused the main party leaders of using the tragedy for political means.

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right Front National, expressed her “regret” over not being invited to the ‘Republican march’, despite wanting to attend, and casting doubt over the genuine motives behind the event.

“I will not go where I am not wanted,” Le Pen told AFP on Friday.

“I was ready to participate and I was very sincere about my desire to pay homage [to the victims of the shooting],” Le Pen said, before adding “regrettably, all is clear now”.

Le Pen, whose party won 25% of the French vote in the European Parliamentary elections in May, the highest proportion of any party, has emerged as a frontrunner for the presidential election in 2017. In an Ifop poll in September, the Front National leader, who has promised to pull France out of NATO, opposed same-sex marriage and vowed to drastically reduce immigration, came top as the most popular choice for president in 2017.

In the run up to Sunday’s march Le Pen flaunted her new found popularity in highlighting that her party stands for “millions of French men and women”, whom President Hollande’s Socialist Party had stifled by not extending an invite to Le Pen.

“The Socialist Party have screwed up this opportunity to show respect to the victims and also a regard for the freedom of expression and the freedom of opinion by excluding a political movement which came out on top in the last election,” Le Pen said.

Le Pen then accused Hollande and Sarkozy of assembling the march to take advantage of France’s “national unity” over the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, but expressed her belief that the ideal would continue to exist “irrespective of whether Hollande and Sarkozy find it useful or not”.

Meanwhile Olivier Besancenot from the far-left Anti-Capitalist Party, who was invited to the march has refused to attend, accusing Hollande and Sarkozy of using the attacks as an “instrument of politics”.

Olivier Besancenot, who has partaken in socialist demonstrations, alleged the event is an attempt for the main party leaders to use the tragedy to play up their own image and present themselves as alternatives to Le Pen.

He told Le Monde on Friday that he will be absent from the march as he did not want to “back François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy when they want to dance to the tune of Front National”.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the Left Party, will attend the event but said he would do so without recognising the main party organisers, adding he will “not recognise the authority” of Hollande’s prime minister Manuel Valls over conducting the march. Instead Mélenchon expressed his hope that the trade unions and activists will take charge of the event.

Thousands are expected on the streets of Paris on Sunday afternoon with a poll taken on the website of France’s daily newspaper Le Figaro showing that 43% out of almost 58,000 respondents said they would definitely attend.

President Barack Obama wants to make two-year community colleges free for students who maintain good grades, according to a plan unveiled by the White House on Thursday.

The plan, America’s College Promise, could help up to 9 million students if all 50 states choose to participate, allowing community college students to save an average of $3,800 a year. The White House wants to make two years of college “as free and universal as high school” and hopes it will lead to increased student enrollment and employment numbers.

“What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” President Obama said in video posted to Facebook by the White House on Thursday.

To be eligible, students have to maintain a 2.5 GPA (C+) and make “steady progress” toward completing their program. Community colleges are expected to offer academic programs that either fully transfer credits to public four-year colleges and universities, or offer occupational training programs that have high graduation rates and “lead to in-demand degrees,” according to the White House.

Community colleges must also show they are working to improve student outcomes through “promising and evidence-based reforms.”

Federal and state funding would be used for the program, with federal funding covering 75 percent of the cost and state funding paying the rest, but Congress has to first approve the plan.

The proposal will no doubt be welcomed by prospective college students, who face entering the black hole of America’s $1.2 trillion student debt problem. However, the Institute for College Access and Success, a group that works to increase access and funding for higher education, called the plan a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and said, “free tuition plans are giant missed opportunities because they put resources where they are less needed when the need is so great in other areas.”

French police have staged simultanueous assaults on the sites of both hostage situations near Paris, where the two gunmen suspected of carrying out a deadly attack at Charlie Hebdo magazine were believed to be hiding at a printworks and a third gunman had taken hostages at a kosher supermarket. Early media reports suggest that all three gunman have been killed, although this has not been confirmed by authorities.

A manhunt for two suspects, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, wanted in the shooting attack Wednesday that left ten journalists and two police officers dead, converged in the town in Northern France on Thursday morning after a car chase. A massive police presence surrounded an industrial building where the suspects were believed to be hiding with at least one hostage, thought to be the manager of the printworks.

The manhunt began shortly after two men entered the offices of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday at 11:30 am local time, and started killing staff members. The men escaped the crime scene in a getaway car, then hijacked a second car later on in the day. They are believed to have been heavily armed. 

Police were also dealing with a hostage standoff in a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris where a gunman reportedly took at least five hostages, who have reportedly been freed after police stormed the building, though some reports indicate four hostages died. 

Several explosions were heard, as well as gunfire and Sky News showed footage of a huge amount of police activity in the area minutes after, with ambulances and police vans arriving. Police then blocked off the roads surrounding and locked down local schools, before telling local shops to close up too. Police hacked into the CC-TV system of the shop, it is currently being checked for boobytraps.

There were later reports that the hostage taker said he will kill hostages if French police storm the building where the Kourachi brothers, responsible for Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo, who were holed up in an industrial area near Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris. There are reports that the brothers have now been killed after police stormed the building .

It’s believed that the gunman is the same one who was involved in the fatal shooting of a policewoman who was killed on Thursday morning in the city. 

The AFP Photo Department tweeted this photo appearing to show five hostages freed from the siege, although police sources have now said that four hostages have died:

Several hostages freed at Jewish supermarket in Paris. Photo Thomas Samson #AFPpic.twitter.com/C9ltgMT0Wl

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) January 9, 2015

The suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Cherif and Said Kouachi, ages 32 and 34, were born in Paris and grew up in an orphanage, They claimed affiliation with Al Qaeda's faction in Yemen before the shooting, which they said was to avenge the Prophet Muhammed. A cartoon version of Muhammed was depicted in the magazine several times, which angered some in the Muslim community, as depictions of the Prophet are considered blashphemous. Experts are concerned that if the suspects were indeed part of a terrorist cell linked to the Yemeni affiliate of Al Qaeda, this would signal a worrying change in tactics for the terrorist organization. 

Photos: France Under Siege After Charlie Hebdo Shooting

Explosions and gunfire were heard at the Parisian Kosher supermarket. slideshow

This story is developing and will be updated as more information becomes available. 

French police were dealing with a double hostage situation on Friday, with at least five people held in a Kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, Paris and a standoff with two men suspected of being behind the Charlie Hebdo attack holed up in an industrial building outside of the capital. 

U.K. TV station Sky News is reporting a number of hostages have now been freed from the kosher Hyper Cacher supermarket where a gunmen took five people hostage. The gunman, thought to be Amedy Coulibaly, is believed to be the same one responsible for the deadly shooting of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Phillipe on Thursday. A woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, is also wanted in connection with the shooting. 

Meanwhile, in northern France, after an enormous manhunt for brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, two brothers wanted for the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris on Wednesda. Ten journalists and two police officers died in the attack. The manhunt converged around Dammartin-en-Goele, a town in Northern France, where the brothers, who are now believed to be dead, were hiding. 

The failure of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to assemble enough votes to install a new Greek president has resulted in a call for elections for January 25. This worrisome development reflects Samaras’s inability to articulate a political strategy beyond the narrow one of saving his own coalition of only 155 out of 300 members of parliament.

But his difficulties have ushered in a period of grave political and economic uncertainty. The main opposition left-wing Syriza party is narrowly ahead in the polls, tapping into public impatience with its demand to European leaders to renegotiate the tough terms of the 2012 rescue package for Greece.

No party looks likely to win an absolute majority. If that happens, Greece’s two largest parties (the incumbent New Democracy and Syriza) will have to share power with other parties, including likely some entirely new parties expected to emerge.

The latest act of the on-off Greek drama brings two aspects into focus.

First, the good news for Europe and the rest of the world: The euro area has more robust crisis management institutions than it had during Greece’s last bout of political instability in 2012. These include the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the outright monetary transactions of the European Central Bank (ECB), and a banking union.

As a result the Greek upheaval, despite sending Greek equity and bond markets into a downturn, has produced no contagion to asset markets in other euro area countries. Moreover, the ECB seems destined to launch a new and more aggressive quantitative easing (QE) program, including purchases of sovereign bonds, if euro area headline inflation dips further because of the decline in global energy prices.

This step is likely to strengthen euro area stability, even though Greek assets and especially Greek government bonds will almost certainly not be included in such purchases. There is thus no reason to expect financial contagion from Greece even if the Greek crisis deepens.

A second factor dampening the prospects for Europe easing up on Greece is politics.

Planned elections in some euro area countries, including Estonia and Finland in March and April, make it unlikely that they will favor further aid or concessions to Athens, for example. In addition, the governments in Spain and Portugal, which face voters and populist challenges toward the end of 2015, will also avoid easing up on Greece, as Syriza demands, when their own populations continue to endure austerity measures.

Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, will therefore have allies when he states that “every new government must respect the agreements made by its predecessors.” Accordingly, no matter who is elected in Athens, Greece will not be able to invoke market turmoil in Europe in getting its austerity program renegotiated.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is also increasingly exasperated with the recent lack of Greek program implementation. And at the ECB, Mario Draghi has his own political needs to placate his more hawkish members’ concerns over moral hazard concerns and get them behind a new regional QE program.

Facing skeptical negotiating partners is only one of the serious obstacles facing Greece’s next prime minister, however. The election sets up a compressed timetable after January 25. The two-month extension of Greece’s economic adjustment program runs out at the end of February, as does the availability of the €10.9 billion in European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) funds remaining from the recapitalization of the Greek banking system. That gives the Greek political system a month to form a new coalition government and negotiate another “technical extension” of the existing program or an entirely new program

A Perilous Situation for Greek Banks

Failure to agree on an extension or a new program for Greece would deliver several blows to the Greek economy, first in the banking system. Three of Greece’s four largest banks recently failed the adverse economic scenario posed by the EU stress tests [pdf], exposing them to a cumulative capital shortfall of €8.7 billion.

The Greek banks are seeking to close these shortfalls, but another severe economic downturn would make this almost impossible and provoke a crisis that Greek policymakers would be reckless to let happen.

More important is the perilous liquidity situation of the Greek banks. The expiration of Greece’s aid program (granted by the troika of the ECB, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund [IMF]) would make Greek government bonds and (government-guaranteed bonds) ineligible as collateral for the ECB’s regular refinancing operations. Without access to standard ECB financing and liquidity, banks would be hampered in extending credit to the Greek economy.

In previous shortages of collateral, bridge financing was available in the form of euro area credit enhancements 1 or emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) by the national central bank. Such an arrangement would be feasible inside the euro area in such situations, but they would require the goodwill of euro area political leaders and/or the ECB, as a two-thirds majority on the governing council can block any ELA. Without a new program in place, such goodwill cannot be counted on.

Greece Has Little Leverage

Some analysts say that the Greek government will be able to exercise leverage in dealings with Europe derived from its projected primary surplus in 2015 of 3 percent of gross domestic product (or perhaps €5 billion to €6 billion). Greece deserves credit for achieving that surplus, but Athens should not assume that it reduces Greece’s dependence on its euro area and IMF partners.

The projected primary surpluses, for one thing, will not survive the adverse economic shock of an expiring troika program, which would strangle growth and reduce government revenues and reserves, jeopardizing its ability to service its debts later in 2015. Ironically, a new Greek government balking over a new troika program would force expenditure even deeper than the status quo.

The Greek government has some wiggle room. It can issue short-term treasury bills to pay its bills and debt servicing for a few months. Such a step would probably require Greek banks to purchase those bills, because few foreign buyers would be interested. Greek banks would then have to cannibalize their lending to the rest of the private Greek economy.2 Added up, these factors suggest that a defiant Greek government would renew its economic crisis.

Possible Election Scenarios

The political uncertainty surrounding the election makes predictions difficult, but several scenarios appear possible.

1. A hung parliament and no new government can be formed.

This scenario would repeat what happened on May 6, 2012, when no coalition could be formed and new elections were called again on June 17. If this happens, a second election would occur around March 1.

As before, a double election would prolong and aggravate economic and financial pressures in Greece. The troika programs would expire, and its members would not be inclined to support Greece in the absence of a government.

Political uncertainty in affluent but aging societies can produce tough decisions if the economic slump is severe enough. Demands for radical action can come from youthful populations, as in the Middle East today or in Europe in the 1930s. But for Europe today, the threat of deeper economic crises is not likely to lead to radical political outcomes.

Rather, electorates tend to want to preserve the perceived stability of the threatened status quo, and in the case of Europe, unlike other parts of the world, the safe haven status is the European Union. Greece has only recently exited a deep recession, moreover, and growth returned in the third quarter of last year. Greece is not likely to want to take the risk of jeopardizing its recently found economic stability.

As in 2012, Samaras will probably benefit most from a further deterioration of the economic situation. His chances of being reelected in a new election in March would be higher than on January 25.

2. Samaras’s Gamble Works, and He Wins.

A Samaras victory would bring the New Democracy party the bonus of 50 parliamentary seats for the party with the most votes, enabling him to form a new majority government with one or more coalition partners—resulting in a status quo election.

Should this occur, Greece can arrange a quick new program with the troika, though the negotiations would not be easy. A host of unfinished reforms from the current program remain to be implemented before any new program can be negotiated. Samaras could probably count on some limited flexibility from the troika on timing, but not content, including some form of temporary liquidity provision and debt rollovers during 2015.

If Samaras can resume the reform agenda, he might be able to resurrect a transition into a precautionary ESM credit line later in 2015.

For Samaras to win, fear about the future will have to trump anger about the present among Greek swing voters. He will therefore likely stoke fears about Syriza, raise economic pressures, and paint Alexis Tsipras as a radical who would send Greece on a new downward spiral.

He may also be helped in this regard by his euro area partners. The German magazine Der Spiegel recently quoted anonymous German government sources that a Greek exit from the euro area could be managed without harming other countries, a far cry from the alarm of a couple years ago. The leak appeared to be part of a campaign to help Samaras convince Greek voters that the costs of a “Grexit” would be borne by Greece far more than other countries.

Not to be cynical, but the worse the Greek economy gets before the election the better for Samaras’s chances. A bank run, in which depositors begin taking their money out of Greek banks before January 25 would improve his chances further.

3. Syriza Wins and Forms New Government.

A Syriza victory, with its 50 bonus parliamentary seats, would make Tsipras prime minister as head of a multiparty coalition. Most potential coalition partners would probably be from the left. Radical leftists are unlikely to join, however, because they would benefit from continuing as a protest movement.

Whether Tsipras can negotiate a new troika arrangement that is also acceptable to his own party is highly uncertain. A large part of Syriza is radically anti-capitalist and unlikely to change its views once in the government. The euro area/ECB/IMF are unlikely to be flexible toward a government in Athens that has won by denouncing them and unlikely to feel pressure from contagion in Europe from Greece’s deteriorating economy.

The euro area can thus afford to wait until the economic situation puts pressure on Syriza, forcing Tsipras to decide whether to risk tipping a new downturn by rejecting a new troika arrangement or a breakup of his government that would come from ditching most of its electoral platform.

Were the 40-year-old Tsipras to navigate this dilemma, emulating former left-wing politicians like President Lula of Brazil, he could dominate Greek politics for a generation and his party would replace the Socialists (PASOK) as the country’s main political force in Greece.

The lure of putting the discredited corrupt pre-crisis politics behind him makes it likely that Tsipras would be more pragmatic toward Greece’s international partners than he was during the election campaign. A conciliatory approach would also help shield him from Samaras’s attacks.

Achieving this new approach would be an almost insurmountable challenge. Syriza lacks a common set of principles and policies. It consists of several political groupings and platforms of varying degrees of radicalism. Tsipras’s fraction is merely the largest of these, while others (like the Left Platform) are more radical. They could easily block ratification of a new deal Tsipras might negotiate with the euro area and the IMF.

In the end, it seems improbable that a Syriza-led government could survive long, no matter which choice Tsipras might make. The Greek economy will deteriorate in a matter of months without a new program, probably causing the government’s partners (or parts of Syriza itself) to abandon the government and force new elections.

An attempt to negotiate a deal would cause the more radical elements of Syriza to desert Tsipras—a most likely prospect because the euro area and IMF are highly unlikely to give a Syriza-led government much leeway. It would be hard for Tsipras to sell a deal that seems to compromise Greece’s sovereignty to his more radical supporters. In this scenario, Greece would likely head back to the polls in spring or summer, giving Samaras an opportunity to win.

A Grim Outlook No Matter What

The 2015 baseline outlook for Greece is not favorable. A dramatic new downturn cannot be ruled out. The most dreadful aspect of this situation is that it results from the erroneous assumptions and misperceptions of Greek leaders themselves.

Despite what many outside commentators say, Greece is the least likely country to shift from the austerity policies in Europe. It remains a small broke country in need of outside financial aid in a potentially rough neighborhood. In a euro area with no financial contagion, it has zero crisis leverage and will inevitably lose any new game of chicken with its euro area partners and jeopardize its hard won economic stabilization while the euro area’s hawks use it as an example of what happens to a country that strays from the traditional policy consensus.

In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy would not be unhappy to see a Syriza-led government send Greece into a tailspin, vindicating his own tough line against the left-wing Podemos party at home. At the ECB, Draghi would willingly sacrifice liquidity support to Greek banks to illustrate concerns over moral hazard and maybe win Klaas Knot or Jens Weidmann’s support for QE in the process.

Outsiders encouraging Greece to defy European austerity and threaten a debt moratorium would, in the words of Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, “be suicidal.” The popular idea that such actions would disproportionately damage Germany is also misguided. Yes, Germany would suffer a financial loss, but it could easily afford to do so. Italy and Spain have more exposure to Greek government debt than Germany, so a Greek default would merely drag other vulnerable countries in the euro area down with it, isolating itself in the process.

Whatever happens, Greece will stay in the euro area and explore ways to deal with its huge debt stock, much of which is owned by other euro area governments. Restructuring these loans into 80- to 100-year bonds at concessionary rates or converting them to euro bonds remain feasible options in the longer term—but only if the chronology is right and Greece first completes its economic reform program.

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. This article first appeared on the Peterson Institute website.

Notes

1. €37 billion of this type of assistance was granted to Greece in the immediate aftermath of the 2011–2012 debt restructuring. See the Council of the European Union’s “Statement by the Heads of State or Government of the Euro Area and EU Institutions” [pdf], July 21, 2011.

2. I am indebted to Dimitris Drakopoulos from Nomura in London for alerting me to these significant quantitative limits to short-term Greek T-bill issuance.

The building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg shimmers in the winter sunshine. Its two asymmetrical steel cylinders and futuristic glass atrium are a beacon of hope for those in Europe who feel their human rights have been violated – but many miles away in London’s Downing Street the building represents something different altogether.

With a general election looming in May, the ECHR is at the centre of an ongoing political struggle over the future of Europe. “This is the country that wrote Magna Carta,” Prime Minister David Cameron blustered to a watching Conservative party conference in October. “Let me put it very clearly: We do not require instruction from judges in Strasbourg on this issue.” A document titled, “Protecting Human Rights in the United Kingdom” appeared a few days later. What it detailed was, its many critics said, a plan to do exactly the opposite. If elected, the Conservatives say they will repeal the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998, which requires the judiciary to “take account” of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and to interpret legislation in a way which is compatible with the the European Convention on Human Rights.

A new “British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” would take its place and judgments in he Strasbourg court will cease to be binding. “As they stand the [British] proposals are not consistent with the ECHR,” stated a terse three-line press release from the court’s mother institution, the Council of Europe. Consequently, the UK would have to withdraw from the Convention and the whole European system of human rights protections, joining Belarus, the only country in Europe currently on the outside.

The opposition Labour party’s Shadow Justice Secretary, Sadiq Khan, has called this “weakening people’s rights here, and undermining our standards abroad.” In an article last month, he wrote: “Our moral authority to press other countries on their human rights record – a cornerstone of our foreign policy – would be chopped off at the knees.” More worryingly for Cameron, he has taken criticism from leading lights within his own party. “Bewildering” was the word used by former Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke. “Puerile,” said former Attorney General Dominic Grieve. These prominent lawyers were relieved of their cabinet duties before the plans were announced. Opponents suggest this timing was not coincidental.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, a non-lawyer, is the man Cameron has now placed at the front of the anti-Strasbourg charge. He paints it as an essential battle for UK sovereignty and says the current role of the Strasbourg court was never envisaged in the original Convention. “The Convention has, de facto in the last 30 years, acquired all the characteristics of a constitution of the United Kingdom,” he says. “Go to the United States and ask, ‘Would you allow an international court to take over responsibility for your constitution, and to remove from Congress any ability to do anything about that?’ They’d say, ‘No’. Of course they would.”

But, Cameron’s critics say, the extent of Strasbourg interference has often been exaggerated. The court’s head of legal division for UK cases, Clare Ovey, says some members of her team will no longer be working on UK cases next year because “there’s just not enough for us to do”. By November 2014, only eight UK cases had satisfied their strict admissibility criteria and made it to a hearing. Ovey describes an increasingly compliant UK that, aside from a few spikes on specific issues, enjoys falling case numbers each year. From 1998 to the end of October 2014, 15,722 UK applications have been struck out – 97.5% of all applications. Only 246 cases have found a violation against the UK. In the past month alone, the Court has held in favour of the UK government on important cases concerning the fair trial rights of the failed London suicide bombers, and the UK Supreme Court’s interpretation of the hearsay rule.

According to Professor Philip Leach, Director of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, which works on cases across the former Soviet bloc, it’s the negative repercussions for the rest of Europe that the Conservatives should be considering. “The proposals are legally bonkers, whether or not you think they make sense politically. The idea that the court judgments become merely advisory, is bonkers squared. It would just rip the system apart.” He shakes his head at a situation where he claims the court gets more respect in Ukraine and Russia than in some quarters of the UK. “The court is not a perfect institution, of course it’s not, but the problems that are there do not require in any way at all for us to withdraw from the Convention. It’s pure politics, coming from fear of the right wing media and Ukip.”

It matters for the people Leach represents. “It’s hard enough as it is,’’ he says. ‘‘You only get some measure of accountability in this system because there is this hard edge to the court judgments. If you take that away, you can wave goodbye to any sense of accountability.” Grayling dismisses these concerns. “The United Kingdom is today a part of the system, Ukraine and Russia are both part of the system. It’s not obvious to me that this has prevented the very worrying situation on the border between Ukraine and Russia.”

The facets of the court system that infuriate critics – an individual can apply, parliaments have no over-ride, judgments are binding, the Convention is a living instrument – are precisely those elements cited as vital by human rights advocates operating in countries where violations are more frequent and serious.

Kirill Koroteev, a Russian human rights lawyer, works for an organisation now listed as a “foreign agent” by the Putin government as part of a crackdown on human rights defenders in the country. He describes a Russian judicial system where achieving a judgment against the state is almost impossible. In this context, the Strasbourg court is absolutely vital. “First you go to Strasbourg and get a judgment, then you have a chance back in Russia,” says Koroteev.

Koroteev represents the families of those 334 killed in the Beslan school massacre in north Ossetia in 2004, as they try to hold the Russian government responsible for its involvement. They recently said of the UK plans: “It would be an excuse for our government to say, ‘We don’t want it either!’. . . The UK has to understand; we all in live in the same world and we all have an impact on one another. The UK must not think only of itself, because this will lead to other countries completely disregarding the rule of law.”

Asking Grayling if he himself has ever had his rights violated produces an awkward silence. “As a UK citizen, not that I can think of,’’ he says. ‘‘We are, in this society, a beacon of good human rights practice in the world.” So there’s never been a situation where you have been concerned about that? He smiles. “No.”