Newspapers headlines: Islamic State threat, Interview reaction and 'Black Friday'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-30543013

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While no story dominates the front pages, two papers offer the results of investigations into Islamic State (IS) extremists.

An undercover reporter working for the Times poses as teenage girls in online and text message conversations with militants to reveal what it says is proof of a UK cell linked to the Islamist group. The paper says the journalist was "inundated with approaches and exposed to the full force of extremist propaganda before making contact via Twitter with a hardline jihadist calling himself Abu Abbas al-Lubnani".

The Times says its investigation proves IS - also known as Isis - is offering cash incentives via UK intermediaries to lure teenagers to Syria. It maps out the route planned for the girls - flying from Luton to Dortmund and then on to Istanbul, before crossing the Turkish-Syrian border.

Meanwhile, the Guardian says it's seen emails proving that US counter-terrorism officials engaged in several weeks of "tentative talks" with the spiritual leadership of IS, aimed at securing the release of American hostage Abdulrahman (Peter) Kassig.

"The ultimately unsuccessful initiative to save him was the brainchild of a controversial New York lawyer, Stanley Cohen, who has represented Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and members of Hamas in courts in the United States," it says.

The paper says he persuaded two senior clerics aligned with al-Qaeda to intervene on behalf of the Americans. "Their aim was not just to free Kassig but to get Isis permanently out of the business of taking and murdering civilian hostages, a tactic that has horrified many jihadis and deepened the theological battle between the group and al-Qaeda." Negotiations collapsed when one of the clerics was arrested by Jordanian authorities, the paper adds.

Interview questions

Sony's cancellation of the film The Interview - a comedy about an attempted assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un - after threats from hackers provokes much comment.

As the Daily Star reports, Hollywood stars have "blasted film bosses for giving in" to intimidation. It reproduces tweets from actors Rob Lowe, who said "Hollywood has done Neville Chamberlain proud today", and Steve Carell, who called it a "sad day for creative expression".

Independent reviewer Roger Friedman says it's a pity The Interview has been pulled, describing it as a "riot throughout". "Their fearless leader secretly loves puppies. He flirts bromantically with [the character of star James] Franco to a creepy extent. He is basically played as a fool."

However, historian Adam Cathcart writes in the Financial Times that "for North Korea there is nothing comic about killing off Kim", pointing out that the leader's father survived a huge explosion on a train, while his grandfather lived through a grenade attack in 1945, as well as American bombing attempts.

The Sun suggests a "sinister hacking group" sponsored by Pyongyang is behind the attack, saying cyber experts as young as 17 are among 1,800 workers at the base of Unit 121 in the North Korean capital. One defector tells the paper: "These people are hand-picked. It is a great honour for them." Richard Lloyd-Parry, in the Times, writes that "for a country with patchy electricity supplies, where farmers still plough with oxen, North Korea is remarkably advanced technologically... Pyongyang's cyberwarriors have already carried out successful practice attacks on South Korea, one of the most wired and technologically advanced societies in the world".

Fraser Nelson writes in the Daily Telegraph: "The phrase 'cyber war' may sound fantastical, but the war is real, and the West is losing... [it is] at a distinct disadvantage. The Russians and Chinese can spend all year developing better ways to steal secrets from their rivals in Britain, but it is hard, legally, for us to counter-attack. We observe laws, while our opponents do not. And diplomacy is impossible, because all of the attacks are deniable."

In the Daily Mail, Dominic Sandbrook cites warnings from a former White House counter-terrorism chief suggesting that an all-out cyber attack could "effectively bring Western society to its knees within just 15 minutes because we are so utterly dependent on electronics... Trains could crash, pipelines explode, the financial markets risk going into meltdown, the National Grid might crash, hospitals could fall dark, cash dispensers might go dead and ordinary life might come grinding to a halt".

However, the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw argues: "I suspect that North Korea will find that the bullying edict will haunt them. The Interview will become a global must-see and their Soviet-style control-freak instincts will look silly and culpable. Kim Jong-un should have just invited James Franco and Seth Rogan to meet him for a real interview. That would have made a great HBO documentary."

'Black Eye Friday'

While the Mail hails a "bargain Christmas" thanks to a supermarket price war and the Black Friday sales, other papers are eyeing up a different sort of Black Friday.

"Let's get the Christmas party started," declares the Daily Star ahead of the most popular night of the year for festive office parties. And it labels the "official start of the festive eating and boozing marathon" as "Black Eye Friday", suggesting that police and ambulance services are on red alert, with "A&E departments expecting a night of chaos".

Those who make it safely through the night with nothing more damaging than a hangover can take advantage of "Panic Saturday" offers in the shops, with stores slashing £1.5bn off prices, according to the Sun.

Meanwhile, the festivities are likely to continue to the extent they'll disrupt midnight mass at some Catholic churches, the Telegraph says. It reports that a survey by The Tablet newspaper found 50 deaneries where services had either been moved to an earlier hour on Christmas Eve or cancelled altogether, while other churches "have effectively been forced to station bouncers on doors".

The Daily Express carries advice for those who enjoyed their yuletide revelry a little too much: "Go dry in January." It quotes the head of charity Alcohol Concern saying: "Take a month off. You'll find at the end you've saved money, you feel healthier, you have probably lost weight and you can change your relationship with alcohol."

Royal photographer

It's nothing new for photographs of Prince Harry to appear on front pages but the Guardian takes the unusual step of using an image taken by the prince on page one.

The prince captured the shots during a trip to Lesotho where he was representing Sentebale, the charity he co-founded to help the tens of thousands of children in the HIV/Aids-plagued African country.

And the papers' experts run the rule over his efforts, with Times photographer Marc Aspland saying the prince manages to capture a "startling and provoking image" of a man in traditional Lesothan dress. "The subject looks both thoughtful and questioning, and this depth of engagement with the subject shows the power of portrait photography at its finest," he says.

Mirror snapper Roland Leon says the prince's pictures "show he has the gift of making people relaxed which is such an important part of photography... Harry has skill and his work shows real promise". The Telegraph's Matthew Fearn says: "He has stuck to the camera's auto setting but as he becomes more confident, he will be able to use the camera on full manual mode, allowing him to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to exercise full control."

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