Western diplomats said the ban had become irrelevant as many users in Pakistan had found ways to access YouTube using proxy servers.

“Many users were able to successfully access YouTube so what was the point [of] keeping the ban,” said one.

YouTube and other US sites including Facebook have faced periodic blocks in Pakistan over content that is deemed to be blasphemous.

The film, which sparked the ban and caused riots across the Muslim world, was a crude piece of propaganda against the Prophet Mohammed.

After the attacks, YouTube removed the video from its site in Egypt and in Libya, but it remained uploaded in other countries.

Protests in Pakistan over the film grew so large that the US government ran advertisements on local television denouncing the film, hoping to quell the violence.

Once behind bars, he refused to follow deradicalization programs, the officials added.

Akbar Hadi, spokesman for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, declined to comment on whether Afif’s activities were monitored after he was released last August.

Police said he planned the Jakarta siege with the three other attackers, one of whom was also a former convict. Four civilians died in the attack along with the militants.

A report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) last year said that 26 prisons across Indonesia housed about 270 “convicted terrorists”, but Islamic State supporters accounted for only a small minority of them.

National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti told Reuters that at least five jailed militants were believed to have been in communication with the plotters in the lead-up to the attack.

Couriers, cell phones

While inside Jakarta’s Cipinang prison, Afif was one of some 20 convicts heavily influenced by fellow convict and firebrand Islamist cleric Aman Abdurrahman, experts said.

From behind bars, Abdurrahman heads an umbrella organization formed last year through an alliance of splinter groups that support Islamic State.

“They shared the same cells, they prayed together, they cooked together,” said Taufik Andrie, Jakarta-based executive director of the Institute for International Peacebuilding.

Abdurrahman regularly spread “takfiri” doctrine, a belief among Sunni militants who justify their violence by branding others as infidels, through his sermons and lectures.

The law firm plans to use so-called capital market model claims, a German legal procedure which – for lack of US style class-action lawsuits – uses court rulings won by individual investors as templates to set damages for others that are equally affected.

VW, which declined to comment, is facing a legal onslaught on several fronts.

US owners of vehicles with higher-than-stated emissions are expected to seek billions of dollars in damages, while the US Justice Department has sued VW for up to USD 46 billion under the Clean Air Act.

Nieding + Barth said it would argue that VW had been aware of its violation of diesel emissions rules before its first statement on the matter in September and should have informed the public earlier.

Germany’s Bafin watchdog said on Monday its probe of whether VW breached disclosure rules was so complex it would likely take several more months.

Bentham Europe, a litigation finance group backed by US hedge fund Elliott Management and Australian-listed IMF Bentham, said in November it was in contact with VW’s top 200 investors about launching a damages claim in Germany as soon as February.

German lawyer Andreas Tilp in October filed a lawsuit on behalf of retail investors.

Emerging markets have certainly been unloved: about $74 billion flowed out of global emerging market equity funds in 2015, up from $25 billion in outflows in 2014, according to data from JPMorgan. Asian emerging markets bore the brunt of the exit; $39 billion flowed out of Asia ex-Japan equity funds last year, the data showed.

As of last week’s close, the MSCI Emerging Markets Asia index was trading at 10.8 times 2016 earnings, while emerging Europe is trading at 6.2 times, according to data from Credit Suisse. More broadly, the MSCI Emerging Markets index is at 10.4 times 2016 earnings, the data show.

“The market is pricing in a complete implosion and the reality is it should just price in a slowdown. So there’s good value out there if you have the patience and the staying power to hold to your convictions,” Hasenstab said.

“But you’re paid to wait, with valuations cheap and in some cases yields very high. If you just sit there and wait for a year, you’re actually getting a nice return.”

The MSCI Emerging Markets Free index, a free-float-adjusted index tracking global emerging markets, has a trailing dividend yield of 3.0 percent, above its five-year average of 2.7 percent, according to Credit Suisse data.

Templeton Global has scooped up shares in select countries, Hasenstab said, but he noted that not all emerging markets were created equal.

“The countries we’re avoiding [are] places like Venezuela, places like Russia, Turkey, South Africa, where either there’s an oil sensitivity that they can’t escape or there’s some policy challenges or structural problems in their country,” he said.

“But places like Mexico, actually, they’ve had two series of governments that have actually changed parties and had total continuity of economic reform. They’re now the largest auto exporter to the U.S. They’re really well positioned yet they’re getting blown up.”

Brian Tan, an economist at Nomura:

Nomura is forecasting fourth quarter GDP growth slowed to 6.4 percent on-year from 6.9 percent in the third quarter.

“The moderation would largely reflect a much smaller contribution from financial services (reflecting the slump in the equity market). However, growth in the rest of the economy should be similar to the third quarter, as weakness in mining, construction and heavy industry are largely countered by stronger public infrastructure spending, consumption and services,” Nomura said in a note Friday.

“Overall, the timelier monthly data are likely to signal that growth is stabilizing (albeit at a low level and likely only temporarily), underpinned by the cumulative policy easing measures and consistent with the stronger-than- expected trade and total social financing data for December.”

Mizuho Bank:

“Tell-tale signs of the slowdown from lethargic industrial activity to dismal PMI manufacturing have markets bracing for a disappointing read of between 6.9 percent. And the number may not be too far off, with possibility of 6.8 percent as the ‘disappointment.’ Nonetheless, ‘hard evidence’ of 2015 growth missing the 7 percent target (likely to be 6.9 percent) and slowing from 7.3 percent in 2014 is likely to renew pessimism,” the bank said in a note Monday. “Bears will bemoan China’s inability to rekindle growth despite the slew of stimulus launched via the monetary, banking and fiscal channels. And currency market cynics will seize this apparent policy impotency as grounds for yuan devaluation; a favorite conspiracy theory. And talk of ‘currency wars’ could potentially add to the bearish momentum in the markets.”

Societe Generale:

“We expect a mild improvement in growth momentum, reflecting numerous monetary and fiscal stimulus measures,” the bank said in a note Monday. “GDP growth is likely to have slowed another 0.1 percentage-point to 6.8 percent, mainly because of a much-reduced contribution from the financial sector.”

Moody’s Analytics:

“China’s economy decelerated further in the final quarter of 2015, judging from slower growth in industrial production and fixed asset investment and falling exports and imports. Price pressures are nonexistent and the government cut interest rates in the quarter, which indicates a continued output gap and need for stimulus. Our tracking model puts GDP growth at 5.7 percent year-on-year, but the official series is expected to come in closer to 6.8 percent, possibly boosted by higher financial sector activity.”