U.S. National Security and Military News Review

Imagine If Obama Had Done This

Uri Friedman, The Atlantic — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 08:00:00 -0400

Republicans have tolerated plenty of foreign-policy moves by Trump that they would never have let his predecessor get away with. Will that continue with Iran?

GlobalSecurity.org: Ahead of UN summit, leading scientists warn climate change 'hitting harder and sooner' than forecast

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:42 -0400

Top climate scientists issued a report on Sunday showing that over the last several years, sea-level rise, planetary warming, shrinking ice sheets and carbon pollution have accelerated; a sobering call to action for political leaders headed to New York for summit-level climate change talks tomorrow at the United Nations.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: UN urges Saudi Arabia to seize opportunity as Yemen offers ceasefire

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:41 -0400

The United Nations has welcomed a proposal by Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement to halt strikes on Saudi Arabia in return for an end to the Saudi-led coalition attacks on Yemen.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: China, Solomon Islands establish diplomatic relations

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:38 -0400

China and the Solomon Islands have established formal diplomatic relations in a new sign of Beijing's growing international influence which has worried the United States.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Taliban Attack Police Headquarters in Afghan Province of Takhar

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:37 -0400

A bomb planted by the Taliban went off in a police headquarters building in the northern Afghan province of Takhar on Sunday, a correspondent reported.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Pelosi: Trump turning 'blind eye' to Saudi violence in Yemen

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:34 -0400

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Donald Trump is "turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's continued violence" against innocent Yemenis.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Taiwan to test cyber defense in first joint exercise with US

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:32 -0400

Taiwan will soon test its cyberwar defense capabilities in the first-ever Cyber Offensive and Defensive Exercises to be held with the United States in November, Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told CNA Sunday.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Impeachment 'only remedy' if Trump's Ukraine call proved: House committee

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:30 -0400

The chairman of US House intelligence committee has threatened President Donald Trump with impeachment amid controversy over his phone call with Ukraine's president.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Afghan Officials: Taliban Suffers Heavy Casualties In Several Provinces

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:30 -0400

Afghan authorities say Taliban militants have suffered heavy casualties in the latest security operations in several provinces across the country.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Egyptian police, anti-Sisi protesters clash for second night in Suez

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:29 -0400

Egyptian police have fired tear gas and live rounds to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters in the port city of Suez.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Trump again threatens to release imprisoned Daesh members at EU borders

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:24 -0400

US President Donald Trump has once again threatened to set free European members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group captured in Syria and Iraq if their countries decline to take back the captives.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Trump Insists He Did Nothing Wrong in Call with Ukrainian Leader

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:20 -0400

U.S. President Donald Trump admitted talking about corruption with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but stopped short of saying they talked about investigating 2020 leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Venezuela's Maduro Accuses Colombia of New Assassination Attempts

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:20 -0400

Several bomb-laden drones exploded close to Maduro at a military parade in the capital of Caracas in August 2018, injuring seven soldiers. The president escaped unscathed.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: US dispatches 175 trucks of weapons to SDF militants in northern Syria: SANA

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:19 -0400

Militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly received 175 truckloads of weapons and munitions dispatched by the United States, irrespective of condemnation by Damascus of the "criminal and repressive" actions of the forces.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Government to reallocate Solomons, Kiribati funds to Pacific allies

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:18 -0400

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is scheduled to appropriate funding originally allocated to the Solomon Islands and Kiribati and disperse it to Taiwan's remaining four Pacific allies after the two island-states decided to end diplomatic ties earlier this week, according to a diplomatic source.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: UN Envoy Welcomes Huthi Rebels' Vow To Halt Attacks As Saudis Remain Cautious

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:15 -0400

The United Nations envoy for Yemen has said Huthi rebels' announcement that they are halting all attacks on Saudi Arabia could help end the long, deadly civil war in the Gulf of Aden country.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Amid Trump-Biden Tug-Of-War, Anxious Ukraine Ponders How To Proceed

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:14 -0400

In Servant Of The People, the TV series in which Volodymyr Zelenskiy played an accidental president, his character found himself caught up in a slew of scandals, each of which he managed to successfully overcome by the end of each episode.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Saudi regime owes US $181mn for refueling support in bombarding Yemen

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:14 -0400

Saudi Arabia still owes the US military $181 million for aerial refueling assistance it received for its brutal bombardment of Yemen's mostly civilian targets amid Pentagon plans to send more troops to the despotic kingdom to purportedly bolster its air defenses against retaliatory drone attacks by Yemeni forces.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: US official claims ISIL militant were among Afghans massacred in drone attack

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:09 -0400

A senior US military commander in Afghanistan has tried to justify the massacre of Afghan civilians in the recent American drone bombing in the country's eastern Nangarhar province, insisting that Daesh terrorists were hiding among the farmers killed during the strike.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Al-Shabab Attack Kills 20 Somali Soldiers

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:06 -0400

At least 20 Somali government soldiers were killed and 18 others were wounded when al-Shabab raided a military base south of Mogadishu, security sources told VOA Somali.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Taliban Leaders Visit China to Discuss 'Dead' US Talks

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:06 -0400

A visiting Afghan Taliban delegation held talks with senior officials in China Sunday to discuss the Islamist insurgent group's now defunct peace negotiations with the United States.

GlobalSecurity.org

GlobalSecurity.org: Houthi Involvement in Saudi Oil Refinery Attacks 'Entirely Implausible' - UK Foreign Minister

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:20:05 -0400

Last week, two of Saudi Aramco's oil facilities were targeted by drones, forcing the oil company to close its Abqaiq and Khurais refineries. While Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks, Riyadh and Washington blamed Tehran for the incident. The Islamic Republic denies the allegation.

GlobalSecurity.org

"global security" - Google News: SURIANO: United States must be firm against Iran - RU Daily Targum

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:15 -0400

SURIANO: United States must be firm against Iran RU Daily Targum

In recent days, the tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have grown exponentially. This round of trouble began when ...

"global security" - Google News

The National Interest: I Was Aboard A Sinking World War II Aircraft Carrier (It Was Hell)

Warfare History Network — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 -0400

Warfare History Network

Security,

How the USS Yorktown went to the bottom.

Key Point: After being rescued at sea by the destroyer Hughes on June 4, Daves and the other survivors watched in helpless horror two days later as a lone Japanese submarine evaded the destroyer screen and fired four torpedoes at the dead-in-the-water Yorktown and a destroyer, the Hammann. The Hammann was sunk immediately and the carrier went under the next day. Daves and the remaining crew returned to Pearl Harbor, where new assignments in the long war awaited them.

After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. He was at Pearl Harbor, serving at Pacific Fleet Headquarters as a radioman, when the Japanese attacked; he was wounded in the hand. Afterward, he requested sea duty on a warship and was assigned to the submarine Dolphin (SS-169), on which he served one war patrol before being reassigned as a radioman second class aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV-5).

After the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 7-8, 1942), in which the Yorktown was heavily engaged and damaged, the carrier returned to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a promised three months in port to make necessary repairs; due to the urgency of the war, the three months was cut to three days.

On the Way to Midway

The Battle of Midway––May 27-June 4, 1942: Everybody on the Yorktown was looking forward to liberty in Honolulu. After nearly four months at sea, even three days ashore sounded pretty good. I was still out on the flight deck with the rest of the crew when Captain [Elliott] Buckmaster came over the loudspeaker and told us he was sorry. No liberty cards for anybody. All hands were needed to get our ship repaired and resupplied and ready to sail in time. In time for what, he couldn’t tell us yet, but he said it was important.

Of course the captain was sorry. Everybody was sorry. And, yes, there was plenty of grousing. I did my share of that, too. But I never once heard anyone blame the captain. We just cursed the war.

Read full article

The National Interest

"Am I Invited?": Trump To PM On Watching First NBA Game In India - NDTV

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:54:08 -0400

"Am I Invited?": Trump To PM On Watching First NBA Game In India NDTV
‘Howdy, Modi!’: Trump hails Indian PM at ‘historic’ Texas rally BBC News
Why we won't be cheering Modi and Trump in Houston CNN
Don’t Mess With Modi in Texas The New York Times
At a rally like no other, Trump woos Indian American voters ahead of 2020 POLITICO
View full coverage on Google News

"fbi" - Google News: FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com - KARE11.com

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:46:00 -0400

FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com KARE11.com

Twice this month, 911 caller reported shooting people, leading to SWAT response.

"fbi" - Google News

FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com - KARE11.com

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:46:00 -0400

FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com KARE11.com

Twice this month, 911 caller reported shooting people, leading to SWAT response.

Antonio Brown’s African proverb may have been thinly veiled warning to league - Fox News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:37:11 -0400

Antonio Brown’s African proverb may have been thinly veiled warning to league Fox News
AB says he's done with NFL; calls out Kraft, Ben ESPN
An NFL team will sign Antonio Brown, who says he's done Los Angeles Times
Antonio Brown starts Sunday by trashing NFL, Robert Kraft on Twitter Yahoo Sports
Antonio Brown's behavior is frustrating – Randy Moss | NFL Countdown ESPN
View full coverage on Google News

Tech industry sets official standard for 8K TVs - Engadget

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:28:24 -0400

Tech industry sets official standard for 8K TVs Engadget

The tech industry just took another step to nail down the specs for 8K TV. The Consumer Technology Association has unveiled the official display definition for...

Police Dressed as Protesters: How Undercover Police in Hong Kong Severely Injured People - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:23:00 -0400

Michelle Williams Calls Out Pay Disparity In Emmys Speech - ET Canada

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:20:35 -0400

"us national security" - Google News: Chinese theft of trade secrets on the rise, the US Justice Department warns - CNBC

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:03:22 -0400

Chinese theft of trade secrets on the rise, the US Justice Department warns CNBC

As President Donald Trump puts pressure on Beijing to end unfair business practices, the Department of Justice has a warning for companies: Bolster your ...

"us national security" - Google News

Security Boulevard: 3 Types of Network Attacks to Watch Out For

Tripwire Guest Authors — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:00:48 -0400

Cybersecurity is becoming more of a common tongue term in today’s industry. It is being passed around the executive meetings along with financial information and projected marketing strategies. Here are some common attack vectors plaguing the industry when it comes to network infrastructure. It does not really matter the infrastructure type you have. If there […]… Read More

The post 3 Types of Network Attacks to Watch Out For appeared first on The State of Security.

The post 3 Types of Network Attacks to Watch Out For appeared first on Security Boulevard.

Security Boulevard

Security Boulevard: Building a Foundation for “Smart” Steel Factories with Fog Computing, the Cloud and Cybersecurity

Lane Thames — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:00:39 -0400

Digital technologies have been transforming our world for the past few decades. For instance, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing have induced an evolution in the way we as society live our everyday lives as well as how many enterprises conduct business. This evolution has started to enter the industrial realm, most notably […]… Read More

The post Building a Foundation for “Smart” Steel Factories with Fog Computing, the Cloud and Cybersecurity appeared first on The State of Security.

The post Building a Foundation for “Smart” Steel Factories with Fog Computing, the Cloud and Cybersecurity appeared first on Security Boulevard.

Security Boulevard

Indian equities may extend rally, Asia stocks firm on Sino-US trade talks - Livemint

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:00:22 -0400

Indian equities may extend rally, Asia stocks firm on Sino-US trade talks Livemint

Australian shares added 0.4%, while New Zealand's benchmark index was 0.2% higher.Crude oil gained more than 1% following tensions in west Asia.

"global security" - Google News: Security Service for Telecom Industry Market Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast, 2017-2025 - Commerce Gazette

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:00:08 -0400

Security Service for Telecom Industry Market Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast, 2017-2025 Commerce Gazette

In past few years, the adoption of smartphone, tablets and other connected devices such as appliances, smart lighting and security systems has increased due to ...

"global security" - Google News

"global security" - Google News: Security Awareness Computer-Based Training Market Key Factors Analysis 2019-2025 - Analytics News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:54:10 -0400

Security Awareness Computer-Based Training Market Key Factors Analysis 2019-2025 Analytics News

Global Security Awareness Computer-Based Training market size will reach xx million US$ by 2025, from xx million US$ in 2018, at a CAGR of xx% during the ...

"global security" - Google News

Eurasia Review: Abdullah Qardash: IS Successor To Al-Baghdadi? – Analysis

RSIS — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:43:06 -0400

Abdullah Qardash, a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s army who rose through Islamic State’s ranks, was reported recently to be the successor to current leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This is perhaps the first time a successor to the world’s most reclusive extremist leader has been mentioned. reflecting IS’ struggle to re-assert itself as a global movement.

By Remy Mahzam*

AMAQ, a news agency affiliated with Islamic State (IS), had reported on 7 August 2019 that the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appointed Abdullah Qardash as his successor. The appointment came at a time when speculations are widespread concerning al-Baghdadi’s deteriorating health after he was injured during a battle in Hajin last year. Qardash’s promotion as al-Baghdadi’s successor can be seen as not only an attempt to restore confidence amongst members but also reinvigorate a fresh series of attacks and possible revival of the IS terror franchise.

Al-Baghdadi is literally the last man standing among the group’s founding members and was last seen in an 18-minute video message on 29 April 2019 rallying his supporters while acknowledging the group’s defeat by US-led Kurdish forces. Many IS top leaders were killed in the siege in Eastern-Syria and the remaining fighters have dispersed and resumed guerilla warfare elsewhere.

Who is Abdullah Qardash?

Abdullah Qardash is from Tal Afar, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city in northwestern Iraq. He is a graduate of an Islamic Sciences college in Mosul and had served as an army officer during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Close to al-Baghdadi’s deputy, Abu Ala al-Afri, who was killed in 2016, Qardash was nicknamed the “Professor” and the “Destroyer” and was recognised as a brutal policymaker in the group. Described by some security analysts as cruel and authoritarian yet popular and well-respected among other IS members, Qardash was responsible for eliminating those who are against al-Baghdadi’s style of leadership.

Qardash shares a history with al-Baghdadi. The two were imprisoned together at Camp Bucca detention centre in Basra by the US forces over their links to al-Qaeda in 2003. Camp Bucca was where al-Baghdadi forged close alliances with other inmates while refining his vision for the so-called Caliphate. Qardash had served as a religious commissar and a general sharia judge for al-Qaeda before pledging his allegiance to the IS.

In choosing his heir, al-Baghdadi would have taken into account his potential candidate’s historical background and religious legitimacy, according to IS’ beliefs. Qardash is assumed to be from the Quraysh tribe and belonging to the Prophet’s family (otherwise known as Ahl al-Bayt) thus making him a seemingly eligible nominee as a future caliph. Being a former Iraqi officer under Saddam’s regime and schooled at a religious college, Qardash would also be knowledgeable in Islamic jurisprudence and history.

Security analysts have, however, noted that Qardash is not the only potential successor to al-Baghdadi. For example, there are three other IS legacy senior members, Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman Al Mawla, Sami Jasim Muhammad Al Jaburi and Mu’taz Numan ‘Abd Nayif Najm Al Jaburi, who have been listed by US State Department’s Rewards for Justice. Some reports have also emerged casting doubts over the veracity of the Amaq announcements over Qardash’s anointment as Baghdadi’s successor.

IS After Al-Baghdadi

A source from the Iraqi Interior Ministry has said that al-Baghdadi is still in Syria and suffering from paralysis in his limbs after being wounded during an attack in Deir ez-Zor in 2018. Although he is reported to have only a small circle of followers left and also believed to suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure, the IS leader continues to have a strong influence and is obeyed among his Arab and foreign followers.

Assuming that Qardash is the real successor, his role might be limited to logistics and administration. Qardash might not have the same vigour, spiritual influence and capacity to be the self-proclaimed leader of all Muslims, a position that al-Baghdadi had assumed in 2014. Al-Baghdadi’s caliphate declaration in 2014 has been strongly objected by Islamic scholars worldwide as he falls short of the requirements and credentials needed as a caliph. Qardash could face similar challenges if he becomes the next caliph.

Since the fall of Baghouz, IS’ last urban stronghold in March this year, the group has been reduced to pockets of resistance. Even if Qardash successfully takes over al-Baghdadi, he will face a divided leadership within the IS ranks whose members are scattered in cells across Iraq and Syria. The various factions that have emerged among the Tunisian, Saudi and Iraqi leadership may even cause some to reject Qardash’s vision and strategy as a leader.

Notwithstanding its territorial defeat, IS has not been beaten as a terrorist organisation. In the latest IS video series “The Best Outcome is for the Pious” released in July, renewed bai’ah (pledges of allegiance) were made to al-Baghdadi by militants in 12 countries. The videos prove that IS militants in several parts of the world still remain loyal to their leader. Whether it’s Qardash or others, al-Baghdadi’s successor will have a committed militant following backing them still in the near to mid-term.

*Remy Mahzam is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (RSIS), Singapore.

Eurasia Review

Emmys 2019: 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,' 'Fleabag' win big, 'Game of Thrones' cast drives fans wild - Fox News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:33:56 -0400

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports - Sputnik International

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:33:00 -0400

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports Sputnik International

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian military from September 23-26 to conduct an inspection of one of the Latvian areas amid the Silver Arrow 2019 NATO drills, ...

"International Security" - Google News: A bad week for army's top brass - Gisborne Herald

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:28:00 -0400

A bad week for army's top brass Gisborne Herald

For the next six weeks the news cycle is going to have a huge focus on Japan, but there is plenty else happening for those not entirely engrossed with rugby's ...

"International Security" - Google News

"global security" - Google News: Trading Watch on Shares of Highcom Global Security Inc (HCGS) - Manville Messenger

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:28:00 -0400

Trading Watch on Shares of Highcom Global Security Inc (HCGS) Manville Messenger

Active investors might be watching some signal indicators on shares of Highcom Global Security Inc (HCGS). Recently, we have noted that the 100-day moving.

"global security" - Google News

"us national security" - Google News: Trump's Asia expert Matt Pottinger to become deputy national security advisor - CNBC

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:19:09 -0400

Trump's Asia expert Matt Pottinger to become deputy national security advisor CNBC

U.S. President Donald Trump's national security advisor said on Sunday that White House Asia policy adviser Matt Pottinger would become his top deputy.

"us national security" - Google News

Stars and Stripes: In gun buyback talk, how do you round up so many weapons?

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:14:41 -0400

The number of AR-15 and AK-47s in the U.S. is estimated at a staggering 16 million, creating logistical challenges to take them out of circulation. Many gun owners are also unwilling to turn over the weapons, and if the government offered to buy them all back at face value, the price tag could easily run into the billions of dollars.

Stars and Stripes

In gun buyback talk, how do you round up so many weapons?

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:14:41 -0400

Aramco's Repairs Could Take Months Longer Than Company Anticipates, Contractors Say - The Wall Street Journal

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:12:00 -0400

Aramco's Repairs Could Take Months Longer Than Company Anticipates, Contractors Say The Wall Street Journal
Iran asks West to leave Persian Gulf POLITICO
Saudi Oil Attack’s Global Aftershocks: Theme of the Week Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia won’t attack Iran. But it may pay someone else to The Guardian
Stop beating war drums for U.S. intervention in Iran | Letters NJ.com
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"cia" - Google News: CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End - The Chicago Maroon

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:01:25 -0400

CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End The Chicago Maroon

Due to the CIA's complicity in human rights violations, students should oppose professional opportunities with the organization.

"cia" - Google News

CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End - The Chicago Maroon

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:01:25 -0400

CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End The Chicago Maroon

Due to the CIA's complicity in human rights violations, students should oppose professional opportunities with the organization.

The National Interest: Hitler's Only Aircraft Carrier Was a Total Failure

Robert Farley — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 22:00:00 -0400

Robert Farley

Security,

Germany laid down its first carrier in December 1936, and launched the Graf Zeppelin two years later. It would never enter service.

Key Point: Graf Zeppelin could have thrown a wrench into Allied naval warfighting plans; in the Arctic, for example, it could have caused major problems for Murmansk convoys. It is fortunate that the Nazis never had the opportunity to put it to use.

From the first days of his ascension to power, Adolf Hitler planned to rebuild the Kriegsmarine into a world-class navy. Most of the world’s other major fleets included aircraft carriers, and so German naval authorities soon determined that the Reich would also require carriers.

Germany laid down its first carrier in December 1936, and launched the Graf Zeppelin two years later. It would never enter service, however: disputes between the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe would delay the development of an air group, skepticism about the value of carriers would slow the project and, finally, the demands of the war prioritized other projects.

Had Graf Zeppelin entered service, however, it might have posed a formidable problem for the Royal Navy. Acting either alone or in support of Kriegsmarine battleships, Graf Zeppelin could have threatened Britain’s commercial lifeline, and at the very least made the antisubmarine campaign considerably more complicated.

Concept

The Royal Navy began converting ships into aircraft carriers before the end of World War I. By the early 1920s, Japan and the United States had joined the pack. The Washington Naval Treaty accelerated the pace of carrier construction, leading to the conversion of several large battle cruiser hulls into fleet carriers. France joined the party shortly thereafter, and even the Soviets and the Italians made abortive moves towards carrier construction.

The Treaty of Versailles sharply limited both German aviation and German naval construction, making aircraft carriers out of the question. When Hitler renounced those restrictions, however, carriers were back on the menu. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement allotted roughly forty thousand tons to German carrier construction, and initially the Reich determined to construct two nineteen-thousand-ton ships (roughly the size of American, Japanese and British fleet carriers). Although access to foreign aircraft carriers was limited, the Germans did manage to acquire some engineering materials from Japan during the design process.

Read full article

The National Interest

Worst dressed at the Emmys: Kendall Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Karamo Brown top the list - USA TODAY

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:48:00 -0400

Worst dressed at the Emmys: Kendall Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Karamo Brown top the list USA TODAY

It may be the biggest night in television, but everyone's fashion didn't shine at the Emmys Sunday. Here are the stars who missed the mark.

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Rams vs. Browns: Live updates, game stats, highlights for 'Sunday Night Football' in Week 3 - CBS Sports

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:47:00 -0400

Rams vs. Browns: Live updates, game stats, highlights for 'Sunday Night Football' in Week 3 CBS Sports
Peter King tours new Los Angeles stadium for Rams & Chargers | NBC Sports NBC Sports
Sunday Night Football: Browns vs. Rams Discussion Daily Norseman
Cleveland Browns induct Clay Matthews into Ring of Honor WJW FOX 8 News Cleveland
Cleveland Browns: Terry’s Talkin’ and worrying about game with L.A. Rams cleveland.com
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Felicity Huffman Was On The Receiving End Of Some Ice Cold Shade At The Emmys - BuzzFeed News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:44:00 -0400

Japan fails to track N. Korea missiles in recent string of launches - The Mainichi

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:43:48 -0400

Japan fails to track N. Korea missiles in recent string of launches The Mainichi

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan has failed to track the trajectory of some of North Korea's new types of short-range missiles in a recent series of launches, r.

A Motorcade on Mackinac Island? Pence’s Visit Breaks a Long Tradition - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:43:00 -0400

Romania, US, Ukraine to conduct Open Skies observation flight over Russia - newspaper - TASS

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:39:22 -0400

Romania, US, Ukraine to conduct Open Skies observation flight over Russia - newspaper TASS

Russia will carry out an observation flight over Slovenia, Russia's Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper reported.

"us national security" - Google News: Trump Asia expert to become deputy national security adviser - Reuters

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:35:00 -0400

Trump Asia expert to become deputy national security adviser Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser said on Sunday that White House Asia policy adviser Matt Pottinger would become his top deputy.

"us national security" - Google News

Food Network star Carl Ruiz dead at 44 - Page Six

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:31:00 -0400

Food Network star Carl Ruiz dead at 44 Page Six
Guy Fieri 'Heartbroken' Over Food Network Star Carl Ruiz's Death: 'I Have No Words' PEOPLE.com
Food Network Chef Carl Ruiz Dead at 44 TMZ
Carl Ruiz, Celebrity Chef and Restaurateur, Dies at 44 The New York Times
Carl Ruiz, celebrity chef, dies at 44 CNN
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Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine - Raw Story

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:25:27 -0400

Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine Raw Story

Former CIA operative Robert Baer warned during a CNN interview that President Donald Trump is going to do whatever he can to hide the transcript of his call ...

"cia" - Google News: Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine - Raw Story

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:25:27 -0400

Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine Raw Story

Former CIA operative Robert Baer warned during a CNN interview that President Donald Trump is going to do whatever he can to hide the transcript of his call ...

"cia" - Google News

Emmy Awards 2019: Jodie Comer, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sophie Turner lead the British stars - Daily Mail

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:24:00 -0400

Did Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Get Laughed at While Presenting at 2019 Emmys? - Entertainment Tonight

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:10:33 -0400

Did Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Get Laughed at While Presenting at 2019 Emmys? Entertainment Tonight
Kim Kardashian Wore a Skintight Black Gown to the 2019 Emmys msnNOW
Kendall Jenner Goes Back to Brunette as She Attends First Emmys with Sister Kim Kardashian Yahoo Entertainment
Kendall Jenner Wears A Latex Turtleneck To The Emmys And, Honestly, Work HuffPost
Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Look All Sorts of Sleek and Sexy at the Emmy Awards msnNOW
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"fbi" - Google News: Lopez graduates from FBI Academy - Sealy News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:10:00 -0400

Lopez graduates from FBI Academy Sealy News

Eddie Lopez, husband of Sealy News Publisher Karen Lopez and an officer in the Harris County Sheriff's Office, was one of 256 law enforcement officers who ...

"fbi" - Google News

Lopez graduates from FBI Academy - Sealy News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:10:00 -0400

Lopez graduates from FBI Academy Sealy News

Eddie Lopez, husband of Sealy News Publisher Karen Lopez and an officer in the Harris County Sheriff's Office, was one of 256 law enforcement officers who ...

Flight forced to land at DIA because of unruly passenger - The Denver Channel

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:09:00 -0400

Internal investigation launched after Orlando officer arrests 6-year-old, 8-year-old - WFLA

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:58:00 -0400

Internal investigation launched after Orlando officer arrests 6-year-old, 8-year-old WFLA
Officer Under Investigation After Arresting Children, 6 and 8, Chief Says The New York Times
A 6-Year-Old Girl Was Arrested After Throwing A Tantrum BuzzFeed News
Orlando school officer suspended after arresting 2 kids - ages 6 and 8 - report says Miami Herald
Dennis L. Turner: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know Heavy.com
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Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ Offense Left the Ravens Flustered - Sports Illustrated

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:57:58 -0400

Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ Offense Left the Ravens Flustered Sports Illustrated
Ravens vs. Chiefs Week 3 Highlights | NFL 2019 NFL
Mike Preston’s report card: Position-by-position grades for Ravens’ 33-28 loss to Chiefs Baltimore Sun
Even In Defeat, Lamar Jackson Is Pretty Damn Special Deadspin
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Emmys deliver to Amazon comedies, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge wins twice - CNN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:57:00 -0400

Emmys deliver to Amazon comedies, while 'Chernobyl' lights up limited series - CNN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:57:00 -0400

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports - UrduPoint News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:50:16 -0400

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports UrduPoint News

The Russian military from September 23-26 to conduct an inspection of one of the Latvian areas amid the Silver Arrow 2019 NATO drills, the Russian Armed ...

Trump doubles down on call to investigate Biden after whistleblower complaint: 'That's the real story' | TheHill - The Hill

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:50:04 -0400

Kim Kardashian Wore a Skintight Black Gown to the 2019 Emmys - msnNOW

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:48:00 -0400

Kim Kardashian Wore a Skintight Black Gown to the 2019 Emmys msnNOW
Did Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Get Laughed at While Presenting at 2019 Emmys? Entertainment Tonight
Were Kim Kardashian And Kendall Jenner Laughed At During 2019 Emmys? Access
Kendall Jenner Wears A Latex Turtleneck To The Emmys And, Honestly, Work HuffPost
People Are Comparing Kendall Jenner's Emmys Dress to American Horror Story Yahoo Lifestyle
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iPhone 11 Alert: Apple Accident Reveals New Upgrades - Forbes

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:40:16 -0400

iPhone 11 Alert: Apple Accident Reveals New Upgrades Forbes
iPhone 11 review: 6 reasons it's Apple's best new smartphone Cult of Mac
iPhone 11 Pro teardown reveals smaller logic board, larger battery TechCrunch
Apple iOS 13 Has 25 Great Secret Features Forbes
iOS 13: all the best features (and the ones that Apple is still holding back) Express
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Kendall Jenner Wears A Latex Turtleneck To The Emmys And, Honestly, Work - HuffPost

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:40:00 -0400

Kendall Jenner Wears A Latex Turtleneck To The Emmys And, Honestly, Work HuffPost

Blonde one day and dripping with latex the next, Kendall Jenner is all about taking risks lately, and the 2019 Emmys red carpet was no exception.

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"us national security" - Google News: DoD Raising Insider Threat Awareness to Safeguard National Security - 107.180.56.147

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:36:00 -0400

DoD Raising Insider Threat Awareness to Safeguard National Security 107.180.56.147

The Department of Defense (DoD), is partnering with intelligence and law enforcement agencies to educate government employees on how to detect and ...

"us national security" - Google News

Pence had a motorcade. But when Ford visited car-free Mackinac Island, he traveled by horse-cade. - The Washington Post

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:34:47 -0400

Israel's Arab lawmakers back Netanyahu's rival, Gantz, for prime minister - Fox News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:34:38 -0400

Israel's Arab lawmakers back Netanyahu's rival, Gantz, for prime minister Fox News
Arab parties throw support behind Gantz as they seek to block Netanyahu The Washington Post
Israel’s Arab Parties Back Benny Gantz to End Netanyahu’s Grip The New York Times
Ayman Odeh: We Are Ending Netanyahu’s Grip on Israel The New York Times
Democrats must embrace Israel and denounce anti-Semitism in the party | TheHill The Hill
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Officer Under Investigation After Arresting Children, 6 and 8, Chief Says - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:34:00 -0400

Officer Under Investigation After Arresting Children, 6 and 8, Chief Says The New York Times
Florida school resource officer who arrested two kids, ages 6 and 8, is under investigation USA TODAY
Two Children, Ages 6 and 8, Were Arrested at School in Florida. Police Say the Officer Acted Without Permission TIME
Orlando school officer suspended after arresting 2 kids - ages 6 and 8 - report says Miami Herald
Orlando police officer suspended after arresting 6- and 8-year-old WKMG News 6 & ClickOrlando
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Warren and Biden Join U.A.W. Picket Lines as Democrats Use Strike to Court Labor - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:34:00 -0400

Warren and Biden Join U.A.W. Picket Lines as Democrats Use Strike to Court Labor The New York Times
Pinkerton: The General Motors Strike Will Test Which Party Will Work for Workers in 2020 Breitbart
Elizabeth Warren protests with striking UAW members at GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant WDIV ClickOnDetroit
How GM's profit sharing offer to UAW workers missed the mark Detroit Free Press
Organised labour has returned Financial Times
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Trump campaign pessimistic about winning Michigan again - POLITICO

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:33:00 -0400

Trump campaign pessimistic about winning Michigan again POLITICO

MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. — Donald Trump has long heralded Michigan as the crown jewel of his 2016 victory. But the president's campaign team is ...

And the No-Host Emmy Awards Are Underway - Newser

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:24:00 -0400

And the No-Host Emmy Awards Are Underway Newser
Emmys 2019: Live updates and all the winners CNET
'Fleabag' Star Phoebe Waller-Bridge on Writing to Meet a Deadline on The Way to The Show! | Emmys The Hollywood Reporter
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Trump’s Hold on Military Aid Blindsided Top Ukrainian Officials - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:20:00 -0400

Trump’s Hold on Military Aid Blindsided Top Ukrainian Officials The New York Times
Biden's campaign likely coming to an end -- thanks to Clinton-linked Ukraine bombshell, Nunes says Fox News
Mike Pompeo Urges Countries to Resist China's Demands to Repatriate Muslim Minorities The Daily Beast
Unblock whistleblower's complaint on President Donald Trump's call to Ukraine over Biden USA TODAY
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Emmys 2019 Hostless Open: TKWhat Happens - Hollywood Reporter

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:17:11 -0400

Emmys 2019 Hostless Open: TKWhat Happens Hollywood Reporter
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2019 Emmy Awards: Live Updates From Tonight’s Ceremony The New York Times
Alex Borstein thanks Holocaust-surviving grandmother in 2019 Emmys speech Page Six
Emmy predictions by series: ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ will win 3 Emmy Awards each Gold Derby
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Giants Rally To Beat Bucs 32-31 In Thrilling Finish, Jones Puts Up 4 TDs In Debut - WFAN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:14:11 -0400

U.S. stock futures gain on better trade tone, oil climbs - Yahoo Finance

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:13:49 -0400

U.S. stock futures gain on better trade tone, oil climbs Yahoo Finance

Wall Street stock futures edged up in early trade on Monday, setting an upbeat tone for Asian markets on hopes of an interim Sino-U.S. tariff deal after the U.S. ...

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Emmys 2019: Our take on a possible 'Fleabag' sweep, and is there love for 'Game of Thrones'? - USA TODAY

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:12:00 -0400

Emmys 2019: Our take on a possible 'Fleabag' sweep, and is there love for 'Game of Thrones'? USA TODAY

From the winners to the losers to the lack of host, USA TODAY's TV Critic breaks down the best, the worst and the boring at the 2019 Emmy Awards.

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Eurasia Review: Did A Common Childhood Illness Take Down The Neanderthals?

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:11:29 -0400

It is one of the great unsolved mysteries of anthropology. What killed off the Neanderthals, and why did Homo sapiens thrive even as Neanderthals withered to extinction? Was it some sort of plague specific only to Neanderthals? Was there some sort of cataclysmic event in their homelands of Eurasia that lead to their disappearance?

A new study from a team of physical anthropologists and head & neck anatomists suggests a less dramatic but equally deadly cause.

Published online by the journal, The Anatomical Record, the study, “Reconstructing the Neanderthal Eustachian Tube: New Insights on Disease Susceptibility, Fitness Cost, and Extinction” suggests that the real culprit in the demise of the Neanderthals was not some exotic pathogen.

Instead, the authors believe the path to extinction may well have been the most common and innocuous of childhood illnesses – and the bane of every parent of young children – chronic ear infections.

“It may sound far-fetched, but when we, for the first time, reconstructed the Eustachian tubes of Neanderthals, we discovered that they are remarkably similar to those of human infants,” said coinvestigator and Downstate Health Sciences University Associate Professor Samuel Márquez, PhD, “Middle ear infections are nearly ubiquitous among infants because the flat angle of an infant’s Eustachian tubes is prone to retain the otitis media bacteria that cause these infections – the same flat angle we found in Neanderthals.”

In this age of antibiotics, these infections are easy to treat and relatively benign for human babies. Additionally, around age 5, the Eustachian tubes in human children lengthen and the angle becomes more acute, allowing the ear to drain, all but eliminating these recurring infections beyond early childhood.

But unlike modern humans, the structure of the Eustachian tubes in Neanderthals do not change with age – which means these ear infections and their complications, including respiratory infections, hearing loss, pneumonia, and worse, would not only become chronic, but a lifelong threat to overall health and survival.

“It’s not just the threat of dying of an infection,” said Dr. Márquez. “If you are constantly ill, you would not be as fit and effective in competing with your Homo sapien cousins for food and other resources. “In a world of survival of the fittest, it is no wonder that modern man, not Neanderthal, prevailed.”

“The strength of the study lies in reconstructing the cartilaginous Eustachian tube,” said Richard Rosenfeld, MD, MPH, MBA, Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Otolaryngology at SUNY Downstate and a world-renowned authority on children’s health. “This new and previously unknown understanding of middle ear function in Neanderthal is what allows us to make new inferences regarding the impact on their health and fitness.”

“Here is yet another intriguing twist on the ever-evolving Neanderthal story, this time involving a part of the body that researchers had almost entirely neglected,” said Ian Tattersall, Ph.D., paleoanthropologist and Curator Emeritus of the American Museum of National History. “It adds to our gradually emerging picture of the Neanderthals as very close relatives who nonetheless differed in crucial respects from modern man.”

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Why We Need To Prepare For The 5G Revolution – OpEd

Arab News — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:08:16 -0400

By Nidhal Guessoum*

Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei, the giant Chinese information and communications technology company, last week gave a long interview to The Economist in which he stated that he would gladly sell all of his company’s 5G technology to any Western company that may wish to buy it.

That announcement reverberated around the world due to its strategic significance. Indeed, the US government has banned American companies, including and especially Google (which makes the operating software Android for all smartphones other than iPhones, not to mention the Google search engine, the Google Maps tool, and other widely used and important software), from dealing with Huawei. Why? Because of suspicions that Huawei may plant electronic moles in its mobiles and/or networking equipment.

This is where the new, fifth generation (5G) mobile networks come in. These new networks, which American and British companies have started to deploy in parts of many cities, can connect to any device and at high speed. And that’s where the battles with Huawei appear: If the 5G network is to connect to various devices in ministries, universities, companies, airports and other high-value places, then they had better not be installed by a company that might siphon out sensitive information for the benefit of the Chinese government, or at the very least commercial and technological competitors.

Why is the problem appearing now, with 5G, and not before? 5G networks use high radio frequencies (from 30 to 300 gigahertz), compared to 4G, which uses “low bands” (1 to 6 GHz) or “mid bands” (6 to 10 GHz or so). And those high frequencies give the new networks two important, game-changing advantages: First, they allow for very high download and upload speeds (more than 1 gigabit per second, which is 10 to 100 times faster than what 4G can provide), and, secondly, they have “low latency,” meaning that the time interval between sending a signal and getting a device to execute the command is very short (less than a millisecond, again at least 10 times faster than 4G). And, finally, another technological development, known as MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output), allows 5G antennas to simultaneously communicate with tens of devices.

One significant disadvantage of the 5G technology, however, is that those high frequencies have short ranges and less penetration into buildings, which will thus require numerous antennas everywhere around us. On the other hand, the antennas are small and will be easy to hide.

One can thus readily imagine the many important applications that his technology will allow for: The ability to remotely control machines and instruments from afar, even from another city or country, via the internet. This will apply to both big equipment (in factories, ports, etc.) and small, fine devices (in hospitals, homes, etc.).

Are there any problems to keep in mind with this upcoming technology, other than the security issue that I mentioned with regard to Huawei? There are the possible health hazards that some people have been raising. Indeed, in a few European cities, some groups have conducted protests, claiming that 5G’s high-frequency radio waves and antennas will have an adverse impact on people’s health, and this has forced some municipalities to delay or change their 5G network plans.

Are there really health hazards associated with these radio waves and their antennas? Radio waves are “non-ionizing radiation” (all electromagnetic waves are referred to as “radiation” in physics); because they occupy the bottom of the electromagnetic energy spectrum, they cannot affect the atoms and molecules in our cells. Radio waves can only contribute heat, and only at high exposure levels — that is with high intensities and over long durations.

Doubters claim that high exposure can occur for those who live near powerful antennas. They cite one study that showed male rats developing cancerous tumors when subjected to high doses of those high-frequency radio waves. However, the intensities in that experiment were four times those permitted in our environment, not to mention that it was only one experiment and only on rats.

Skeptics also point to reports from people who have complained of various health effects, presumably caused by such waves: Headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, eye inflammation, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, etc.

And, last but not least, they point to a possible impact on very young children (since antennas will be everywhere, including near kindergartens), pregnant women, elderly people, etc. Better to be safe than sorry, they insist: Adopt and apply the principle of precaution.

While 2020 is often mentioned as “the year the world will go 5G,” and although companies have started to roll out the networks and the devices that will be needed to use them, it will take several years, perhaps even a decade, for the 5G “revolution” to be felt by us all.

In the meantime, it would be wise to conduct research on various aspects of the technology, first and foremost any possible hazardous health effects, but also the social impact that the technology will have, in both private and work environments. The digital revolution, which transformed the world with computers, then changed it again with the internet, Wi-Fi, and smartphones, is about to go into a higher gear; we need to prepare for it.

• Nidhal Guessoum is a professor of physics and astronomy at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Twitter: @NidhalGuessoum

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Israel-US Discuss Best Timing To Launch Middle East Peace Plan

Al Bawaba News — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:07:39 -0400

Talks currently held between US special envoy for the peace process Jason Greenblatt and Israeli officials could have tackled details of US plan to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israeli media reported.

Until Saturday evening, no meeting was held between Head of the centrist Kahol Lavan Party (Blue and White) Benny Gantz and Greenblatt, who had earlier met with incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Despite reports on a meeting scheduled for Friday between Greenblatt and Gantz, the latter’s office announced that he had not been invited to such a meeting.

Israeli sources have suggested that Greenblatt and US ambassador to Israel David Friedman prefer dealing with Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump’s friend.

Americans believe that forming a unity government would be more suitable to be able to promote the deal Trump is working on because a narrow right-wing government may face difficulties in implementing the terms of the peace plan.

Greenblatt and Netanyahu made no comments to reporters following their meeting at the Premier’s residence that was attended by Israel’s ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and Friedman.

“Jason Greenblatt will hold talks with various parties on US-Israel relations, regional dynamics and the US government’s peace efforts,” the US embassy in Israel said.

Israeli media said talks might have tackled the best timing to launch the US peace plan to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

It is noteworthy that Greenblatt had arrived in Israel on Thursday on a visit believed to be aimed at verifying whether the time has come to announce the deal of the century, and the best time to release it, either during coalition negotiations or once the government is formed.

It is also suggested that Greenblatt’s current visit is also aimed at influencing the political system in Israel and making sure the deal of the century will be part of the consultations to form the next government.

The US envoy will also try to pave the way for the deal and try to reduce objections.

The election’s results in Israel, in which Netanyahu suffered a defeat, seem to have overshadowed the US peace plan.

With nearly all votes counted Thursday, the centrist Blue and White party stood at 33 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud stood at 31 seats.

Original source

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Is ‘Howdy Modi’ Event Just Much Hyped Indian Media Noise? – OpEd

N. S. Venkataraman — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:06:39 -0400

It is well recognized that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a man with an enviable personal discipline and a high level of determination to succeed in whatever job he undertakes. Such quality is rare in a politician and therefore,Mr. Modi is much admired by most people in India and to some extent abroad. He is admired silently even by most of his pledged critics in India.

During his first term of office as Prime Minister and his ongoing second term of another five years, he has introduced several innovative and much relevant plans in variety of fields including anti-corruption drive, clean India campaign, promotion of yoga culture, etc. The latest cause he has taken is population control.

Even the pledged admirers of Mr. Modi cannot deny that most of the schemes he has initiated are still in the formative stage or in the stage of work in progress. The country is yet to see the full benefits of the schemes and measures that he has introduced. But, any inadequate progress is not due to want of his personal efforts but in spite of that, since the problems of India are complex and ground realities are inter related in several ways. However, the fact that he has been trying hard is itself adequate for the huge support that he enjoys among a crosssection of Indians.

A senior leader of Mr. Modi’s own party, sometime back, said that Mr. Modi is an event manager par excellence. Several of Mr. Modi’s methods indicate that this could be largely true and give an impression that Mr. Modi enjoys publicity and fanfare. This is not a bad aspect of his methods by itself. But, sometimes, this approach look to be not in tune with several social problems faced by people of India, where 25% of the population (around 300 million people) still live below poverty line without even minimum social and economic security. This is particularly so, since Mr. Modi is the Prime Minister of a developing country like India, which still has a long way to go.

In such circumstances, there has been much hype in India about the Howdy Modi event in Houston in USA, which has certainly raised eyebrows, since the event seems to be more focused on Mr. Modi rather than India. Again, this event is organized by Indian origin people living in USA, most of whom have become full-fledged citizens of USA and quite a number of them living in USA for generations and some of them may not have even visited India and understand in first hand manner the traditions, problems, stresses and strains in the country.

Obviously, this event is not organized by representative gathering of Indian people who are the event organisers and the event attendees. There is something unreal about these people eulogizing Mr. Modi to such a sky high level.

What is even more surprising is that a section of the Indian media, particularly visual media, have been focusing on this event as if Mr. Modi ha won the hearts of citizens of USA. The fact is that non-Indian origin US citizens are not participating in organizing this event, but only citizens of Indian origin who form a small fraction of overall the US population.

Of course, US President Donald Trump sharing stage with Mr. Modi gives a striking message, which should be recognized and should not be ignored. But, every discerning observer knows at the heart of hearts that there is an element of politics in Mr. Trump’s gesture at this stage, which may be due to some problems faced by US in geopolitics. The US needs India’s support in extricating itself from Afghan problem and in containing China’s expanding influence in the global sphere. Keeping Mr. Modi in good humour at this stage, perhaps, is part of the political and diplomatic strategy of USA.

Further, one has to note that while Indian media is going overboard in applauding the Howdy Modi event, the same enthusiasm is not shared by US media.

As far as Mr. Modi is concerned, this Howdy Modi publicity will do a lot of good to boost his image; perhaps, more in India than in USA.

While this Howdy Modi event is significant as far as it goes, one cannot but conclude that it is just hyped media noise, as far as India is concerned where little assessment is made by Indian media regarding the long term significance of this event for US-India relations.

Eurasia Review

"us national security" - Google News: How Fake Agile At DoD Risks National Security - Forbes

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:06:31 -0400

How Fake Agile At DoD Risks National Security Forbes

As Agile is increasingly seen as the standard way to manage work in the 21st Century, we are seeing more and more “Agile in name only” or “fake Agile”.

"us national security" - Google News

Eurasia Review: Why We Need Religion More Than Ever In The Pursuit Of Peace – OpEd

IPS — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:06:14 -0400

By Blerim Mustafa*

The proliferation of political crises and armed conflicts in every corner of the world does not exclude religious groups, which unfortunately also contribute to animosities, intolerance and hatred. The Middle East has been on the hit-list of violet extremist groups for decades. One telling example is Syria where clashes have on occasion taken religious or denominational overtones, fracturing Syrian society for decades to come. They have given rise to sectarian divisions along ethnic and religious lines in a country where inter-religious harmony once prevailed. We observe a similar situation in Iraq. In Myanmar, government security forces unleased a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing and hatred against the Muslim Rohingya population. The military crackdown on the Rohingya community has significantly aggravated inter-communal violence in the country. And in the Central African Republic, armed militant groups sloganizing misrepresentations of Islam and Christianity, commit abuses and human rights violations on each other on a daily basis.

The conclusion that can be drawn is that the proliferation of political crises and armed conflicts indiscriminately target communities and societies regardless of religious beliefs or denominations. Violent extremism cannot be ascribed to one religion or region of the world. The recent appalling violent extremist attacks in Christchurch, Oslo and Colombo illustrate that violent extremism targets societies and communities blindly and where we least expect it to happen.

In a time where racism, racial discrimination intolerance and the fear of the other is on the rise, defusing inter-religious conflicts and enhancing understanding for religious diversity is needed more than ever.

In this spirit, inter-faith dialogue and cooperation remains an essential vehicle for religious believers to know, understand, and respect one another. Interreligious and religious-secular dialogues have the power to promote lasting change through a dialogue that fosters mutual coexistence, tolerance and empathy. This entails sharing a relationship of respect and mutual confidence as well as to identifying commonalities among religions, creeds and value systems in promoting multidimensional equalities, accepting diversity between human beings and promoting empathy. As His Holiness Pope Francis reminded us in Sarajevo in 2015 during his visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina:

“We need to communicate with each other, to discover the gifts of each person, to promote that which unites us, and to regard our differences as an opportunity to grow in mutual respect.”

This is a telling reminder that interreligious dialogues can serve as a vector to help break down the walls of ignorance that characterize many societies around the world. There is a need to build alliances between all religions and faiths to address the surge of racial discrimination, intolerance and prejudice. The visit of Pope Francis to the United Arab Emirates in February this year, for instance, and the historical signing of the joint document on “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” between the Pope and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb are eloquent examples of endeavours made by religious leaders to promulgate a vision of unity in diversity.

It is likewise one of the greatest paradoxes of the contemporary world that major world faiths and creeds are being perverted by violent extremist groups to justify hatred and exclusion. All major world religions advocate peace and justice. The religious teachings of many traditions recognise that prevention of conflict in society by acceptance of the other is rooted in the dignity endowed to the human being. It is through unity — not division — that humanity can promote a world living in peace and harmony. All religions can play an important role.

Let me cite some examples.

Islam, for instance, puts strong emphasis on equality, proclaiming that all human beings are borne free and equal. During the era of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH), he said to his followers:

“An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.”

In Judaism, equality before the law plays a strong role in the enhancement of human dignity, human conduct and responsibility towards one another. Sanhedrin 4:5 teaches us that “(…) none should say, (my) Father is greater than yours,” for we are all descendants of the same ancestor.

In Christianity, we are taught in Galatians 3:28 that equality must guide our actions. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The right to equality is also emphasised in Hinduism. The Vedas – the sacred scriptures of Hinduism – observe: “No one is superior or inferior. All are brothers and all should strive for the interest of all and progress collectively.” So too in Budhism, as indeed Buddha taught a social message of love, equality and fraternity which underpin equal citizenship rights.

In Confucianism, the notion of “datong” or ‘Great Community’ symbolizes a world in peace and unity in which all people live in harmony with each other, collective and individual human rights being affirmed and closely interwoven.

These examples illustrate that religions and faiths themselves are not the source of hatred and intolerance, but only their distorted instrumentalization for vested interests by violent extremist groups. One must therefore harness the collective energy of all religions and faiths in the pursuit of peaceful and inclusive societies as stipulated in Sustainable Development Goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There is no reason for religious communities to fear one another as our commonalities clearly exceed our differences.

*Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: UK-Flagged Tanker Stena Impero To Be Released ‘Soon,’ Says Iranian Official

RT — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:05:57 -0400

A British-flagged tanker detained by Iran in mid-July will be released soon, according to a Fars news report citing an Iranian maritime official.

“After the issuing of the ruling for the end of detention of the English tanker Stena Impero this vessel will soon, and after the passing of 65 days, begin its movement from the port of Bandar Abbas toward international waters,” said Allahmorad Afifipour, the head of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran in Hormozgan Province.

The vessel, registered in Britain but owned by Swedish logistics firm Stena Bulk, is one of the ships at the center of a terse diplomatic row between London and Tehran.

A spate of recent ship seizures involving the two states began in early July after British commandos and Gibraltar police seized an Iranian oil tanker off the southern coast of Spain on suspicion of transporting oil to Syria in contravention of EU sanctions. The ship was eventually released.

The Stena Impero was seized by Iranian authorities as it entered the Strait of Hormuz on July 19, with Tehran claiming it had violated several maritime rules. Despite Afifipour’s comment on Sunday, it’s not clear exactly when the ship will be released.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Why Venezuelan Money Is No Longer Welcome In Switzerland

SwissInfo — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:04:28 -0400

By Marcela Aguila Rubín

Swiss banks have joined the US sanctions against Venezuela, meaning the South American country’s diplomatic missions in Bern and Geneva are running out of funds to do their work and pay their staff.

“We’re in a situation of financial impotence,” complains César Méndez, the Venezuelan ambassador in Bern. The embassy’s bank accounts at Credit Suisse were suddenly closed, he says. Since then, no money can be sent from Caracas to Bern.

A Credit Suisse spokesman says the bank won’t comment on “possible business relations”.

Méndez has also contacted other banks, including PostFinance, but none would open an account for him.

“We met the Swiss authorities, some of whom reacted with surprise and even embarrassment,” he tells swissinfo.ch. “But we were then told that they couldn’t get involved because it was a private matter between a bank and its clients.”

However, according to Article 25 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, “the receiving State shall accord full facilities for the performance of the functions of the mission”.

Official position

So is Switzerland obliged to help? During the current parliamentary session Fabian Molina from the leftwing Social Democratic Party raised this issue with Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, asking what the government was doing about this and whether the current legal basis was sufficient.

In his response on Monday, Cassis said the Vienna Convention was “aimed at the contracting states and did not regulate relations between private individuals. The business relationship between Swiss banks and their clients is subject to civil law, even when a foreign representation is a contracting party”.

He added: “The legal basis does not allow us to override the laws of other states. That’s the international situation.”

However, Cassis explained that “in concrete cases, when necessary, the foreign ministry supports the representation concerned in the search for solutions so it can carry out its official activities in accordance with the Vienna Convention”.

Can’t pay the rent

The closure of the bank accounts of Venezuelan diplomatic missions in Switzerland falls within the scope of the sanctions imposed by the United States, which also affect Cuba and other countries.

“Swiss banks fear the fines that the United States could impose. They are actually stricter in applying sanctions than banks in other European countries,” Méndez says.

According to a report in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper, the embassy can no longer pay the rent for the residence in Bern. Embassy staff in particular are suffering. They are no longer able to make ends meet, whether it’s paying the rent or medical bills or even buying food.

US embargo

A tightening of the US economic embargo forces Swiss banks to stop transactions with Cuba and Venezuela. Although Swiss banks are not directly subject to US law, they risk exclusion from the US payment market.

Since 2017, the United States has imposed increasingly severe sanctions on Venezuela, targeting the autocratic president, Nicolas Maduro. However, the US does not see him as a legitimate head of state.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Hong Kong Catholic Leaders: Vatican Involvement In Protests Unlikely

CNA — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:04:08 -0400

By Jonah McKeown

Catholics in Hong Kong are continuing to participate in large-scale protests on the island territory, which have been going on now for over 100 days.

Despite the protests’ importance to people of faith, two Catholic leaders in the movement— the island’s auxiliary bishop and a student leader— told CNA that they do not expect the Vatican to weigh in on the situation in Hong Kong.

“It doesn’t seem to me that it’s necessary for the Holy See to get involved in the protests of Hong Kong. On the other hand, I have not spoken with anyone from the Holy See regarding the movement,” Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing told CNA Sept. 19.

Bishop Ha has been publicly supportive of the protests, as has Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen. Ha has taken part in ecumenical prayer rallies with protesters in the past, urged an increase in prayer and said he is concerned for the safety of the many young people involved in the protests.

A controversial extradition bill, now officially withdrawn, sparked the first large protest on the island in June, when an estimated 1 million marchers took to the streets, chanting and singing.

The bill would have allowed alleged criminals in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China, leading to fears from Catholics and Christians that the Communist Chinese would use the bill to exert pressure on the free exercise of religion in Hong Kong.

Edwin Chow, acting president of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students, told CNA that he thinks the Vatican’s delicate relationship with the Chinese government will make it unlikely that Pope Francis will come out in support of the protesters.

“I don’t really think that the Vatican will say something on the protests in Hong Kong. I hope they will support, but I don’t think that they will,” Chow told CNA.

“I don’t think that Pope Francis or the Vatican will say anything about the protests, because I think at the same time they are trying to deal with the Chinese government…so they will not do this thing, they will not support Hong Kong, because [to] support Hong Kong will make China angry.”

Sept. 22 marks one year since the Vatican signed a deal with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops, the details of which have still not been made public.

The provisional deal was intended to unify the underground Church, which is persecuted and faithful to Rome, and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which is Communist government-sanctioned. It reportedly allows the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to choose a slate of nominees for bishop, and has drawn significant criticism.

Beijing has for years sought to control religion in China, leading to widespread persecution. The U.S. Commission on International Religion wrote in its 2018 report that last year China “advanced its so-called ‘sinicization’ of religion, a far-reaching strategy to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith into a socialist mold infused with ‘Chinese characteristics.’” Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners have all been affected.

Cardinal Zen, in particular, is a sharp critic of the Vatican-China deal, and has called the deal a step towards the “annihilation” of the Catholic Church in China.

Chow said his student group invited Cardinal Zen to celebrate an annual Mass for students Sept. 20.

He said a new protest anthem called “Glory to Hong Kong,” which has recently spread virally online, has even made its way into the Masses that the federation have held.

“People in Hong Kong really like this song, and it’s become a new anthem of the whole protest,” he said.

“At the end of the Mass, we sang…’Glory to Hong Kong,'” he said.

He said a local parish started the practice of singing the anthem at the end of Mass last week, but this week the diocese published a set of guidelines warning against the singing of political anthems at Mass.

“Although the parish is sure that the Lord’s ceremonies and the devotees are deeply concerned about the current turmoil in Hong Kong society, they do not agree that the social movement songs are applicable to the sacrificial ceremonies,” the diocese Secretary General wrote Sept. 19.

Chow said the young people see the situation differently.

“But we don’t think that the diocese has a very good argument. We don’t think that they’re right, so we still sing the song in today’s Mass. And why we sing the song is because we want to pray for Hong Kong.”

Last weekend, he said, there was a large protest in the city center, which Chow attended. He said like at many of the previous protests, the police used tear gas and water cannon to break up the protesters.

One of the protesters’ demands is a full investigation into what they see as brutal tactics by the police throughout the protests.

“I think the police are trying to suppress the protests, so sometimes they don’t actually approve the protest, but [people] still go outside. But actually for the protests that are not allowed by the police, some people may be afraid that they will be arrested, and will not go out. So I would say that actually the people trying to protest are decreasing.”

The protests are becoming more and more aggressive with more and more use of force, he said. Many protest activities, at least one almost every day, are scheduled for the coming two weeks, he said.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Saudi Crown Prince Arranges Special Plane For Pakistan PM’s US Visit

Arab News — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:03:57 -0400

By Saima Shabbir

Imran Khan’s media adviser on Sunday praised the “magnanimity” of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for arranging a special plane to fly Pakistan’s prime minister to New York.

Khan “went to Saudi Arabia on a commercial flight,” and the crown prince “offered a special plane to him for his travel from Saudi Arabia to the US,” Iftikhar Durrani told Arab News.

Khan began his week-long visit to the US on Saturday to attend the 74th UN General Assembly (UNGA) and participate in a host of other activities, including a meeting with President Donald Trump. Khan and the crown prince “have chemistry,” said Durrani. “They like each other.”

International relations expert Dr. Mussarrat Amin told Arab News: “Khan’s earlier visit to the US was also arranged by the crown prince, which produced positive results for Pakistan.”

Amin said Saudi Arabia is in a position to help Pakistan in its diplomatic engagements with the Trump administration, which is why Khan visited the Kingdom before flying to New York.

“The Saudis can influence the US to play a mediatory role between Pakistan and India. People in Pakistan expect great things from the Kingdom when it comes to the Kashmir issue,” Amin added. The Pakistani and Indian prime ministers are scheduled to address the UNGA on Sept. 27.

Former Pakistani Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi said the crown prince’s gesture shows the warmth between the two countries, and Khan’s visit to Saudi Arabia ahead of his US trip was significant.

Khan “reached out to the crown prince to stop the escalation of the situation in this region due to India’s actions in Kashmir,” Naqvi told Arab News.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Limits To The Asia-Pacific Growth – OpEd

Meseto Abe* — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:03:42 -0400

Following the massive socio-economic success of the largest continent, corruption is the next battleground in the development of the Asia-Pacific. Lately, it has hampered inclusive and sustainable development and is a primary cause of the difficulty experienced by developing Asian-Pacific countries in advancing beyond the middle-income bracket.

Fostered by weak regulation and enforcement frameworks, corruption comes in many forms, including bribery, embezzlement, and cronyism. It undermines not only business ethics and positive social norms, but also people’s trust in political and economic systems, institutions, and leaders.

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which measures corruption in 180 countries annually, reveals that high-income countries experience far less corruption than their lower-income counterparts do. With Singapore in sixth place and Afghanistan in 177th, the Asia-Pacific is home to countries at both extremes of the CPI. China and India, the world’s most populous countries, are ranked 77th and 81st, respectively.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific have made some efforts to combat corruption, but that the problem remains widespread throughout the region tells us that these are not enough. In fact, there seems to be a willful lack of attention among these countries about tackling corruption head-on.

Corruption affects every aspect of society

This lack of attention may be due to the widespread belief that corruption helps “grease the wheels” in business activities. Top companies pay large amounts to receive faster and better service from authorities; this, the thinking goes, makes the economy more efficient. In the Asia-Pacific, this often manifests itself as bribes, gifts, banquets, and favors given by business entities to politicians and bureaucrats. In the view of its proponents and those who tolerate it, corruption speeds up the wheels of commerce and positively impacts companies’ development by easing bureaucratic barriers. Corruption can also facilitate a company’s entry into a highly regulated economy that is difficult to penetrate otherwise.

But these benefits hold true only for a small number of companies. Corruption has an inverse U-shaped relationship with company revenue: a company may gain benefits when it pays bribes, but the benefits are subject to diminishing returns after a certain amount. Also, corruption has a significant negative correlation with companies’ overall satisfaction with their business environment. These two points seem to indicate that rather than “greasing the wheels,” corruption actually “sands the wheels.”

In fact, corruption has adverse effects on overall economic development. It reduces investment, lowers growth rates, and negatively impacts efficiency. At the company level, corruption absorbs returns from business activities and distorts entrepreneurial spirit and behavior. Companies that are involved in corruption report rises in operational costs of 10 percent on average, in addition to greater uncertainty. These factors ultimately have an impact on their strategic and investment decisions. This could explain why some studies have shown that foreign direct investment in countries that are perceived as corrupt is almost 5 percent lower than it is in countries that are relatively corruption-free.

Corruption also negatively impacts political and societal landscapes. As money that is meant for the public is funnelled away, the cost of providing and maintaining public goods and services increases. Vital goods and services like roads and telecommunications networks eventually fall into disrepair or are not delivered at all due to a lack of funds.

Corruption also undermines the rule of law and the government’s ability to combat externalities such as pollution and security risks. In addition, it hinders development by diverting resources away from productive sectors and reducing human capital and tax revenues. Corruption has been shown to decrease national productivity and diminish the effectiveness of foreign aid. On a macro level, these and other effects of corruption can strip a country of gains from trade in the absence of good institutions. Corruption also makes it more difficult for the poor and other disadvantaged groups, such as women and minorities, to obtain public services, thus deepening inequality.

How can countries reduce corruption?

Governments should introduce anti-corruption laws, which typically require government officials to declare their assets, and enforce strict penalties for corrupt practices. For example, in the wake of recent high-profile revelations of bribery and embezzlement at major state-controlled enterprises, Singapore’s anti-corruption watchdog plans to strengthen anti-graft laws with more severe financial penalties.

The introduction and strengthening of anti-corruption laws can have a massive impact. In 2005, India passed the Right to Information Act, which aimed to make administrative procedures transparent. The law reduced corrupt practices significantly and has since been hailed as a pivotal achievement in the country’s fight against corruption. The rule of law and administrative actions must be constant to be effective in reducing corruption.

Governments can also implement a number of reforms in their legal systems and administrative processes. Such reforms could include measures that provide oversight of the financial sector, public procurement, customs procedures, construction licenses, land registration, and corporate establishment and dissolution. These require adequate institutional capacity and financial support to be successful. Kazakhstan, for instance, has recently strengthened its anti-money-laundering regime: it is now largely compliant with international standards. However, the government still lacks the resources and expertise to properly enforce the regulations. To successfully tackle corruption, strong, transparent, and accountable institutions that deal with taxation, budgeting, and spending must also be established.

Indeed, an effective fight against corruption requires the building of robust democratic institutions, particularly those that champion trade openness, fair competition, and press freedom. Institutional structures are also important, as more decentralized states have lower levels of corruption. As can be expected, social norms and culture are important determinants of corruption levels, but they can be hard to measure. In general, strengthening governance is a good way to reduce corruption, because inefficient bureaucracies make it easier for corrupt practices to be carried out.

Beyond national governments, the United Nations and its various agencies must raise awareness of corruption in the Asia-Pacific. Addressing and combating the issue will pave the way for countries in the region to work towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

While Transparency International plays a leading role in exposing corruption worldwide, the World Bank has drawn up, and continuously updates, anti-corruption policies for governments. The International Monetary Fund also recently unveiled its new framework for addressing corruption. Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific must embed the principles of both the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and the OECD Bribery Convention in their governance frameworks. Engagement with international organizations can facilitate the development of an effective national anti-corruption strategy.

For this purpose, “a committed political leadership and broad political support are necessary” – says the independent expert in the field, Luigi Coretti of Canada. It well captures a consensus on the matter in the community of specialists. Coretti concludes: “Engagement with local stakeholders, such as civil society organizations, the media, and academic institutions, helps build a sense of national ownership and ensure the acceptability and effectiveness of coordinated and comprehensive actions.” Both governments and companies are encouraged to report to these stakeholders their anti-corruption activities and outcomes achieved. They should also use all available communications channels, such as websites and flyers, to provide more insight into their assessment mechanisms and corrective actions.

Finally, it is to hope that more comprehensive research will be conducted to help identify ways to eradicate corruption and other business obstacles in the Asia-Pacific. One crucial issue in this arena is that many previous studies on corruption have been conducted jointly with local authorities, so their results are questionable. With the participation of the authorities in such research, surveyed firms and people are likely to be hesitant to offer their candid opinions on the level of corruption among officials. Before any anti-corruption strategies can be determined for a given country, we must have the full picture of the problem of corruption.

*Masato Abe, specialist at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: FIFA Says Iran To Allow Women Into Next Soccer Match – Statement

FIFA — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:03:32 -0400

On September 19, a delegation of FIFA experts visited Tehran to discuss measures designed to allow women in Iran to freely attend football matches.

The delegation, which was also joined by a representative of the Asian Football Confederation, met with the country’s Deputy Minister of Sport and Youth, and representatives of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) focusing on international relations, security and ticketing matters. The delegation also inspected the Azadi stadium in Tehran, where on 10 October 2019 the national teams of Iran and Cambodia will play a qualification game for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

In these productive discussions, FIFA reiterated its firm and clear position that women need to be allowed to enter football matches freely and that the number of women who attend the stadiums be determined by the demand, resulting in ticket sales. The inspections on site showed that there are no noteworthy operational obstacles to these measures being implemented at the Azadi stadium, starting with the game on 10 October 2019. In that respect, the delegation also discussed the detailed ticketing procedures as well as operational procedures required and in line with relevant FIFA regulations.

Furthermore, the delegation discussed the need to open stadiums for women to attend national matches. In that respect, FIFA announced that it will, based on the operational plans and results of the 10 October 2019 game, collaborate with the FFIRI in developing an operational protocol and related requirements for matches in the Iranian football league to be opened for women as well.

FIFA will continue to engage closely with the FFIRI and relevant government entities to implement these important changes in accordance with FIFA regulations.

FIFA’s position is firm and clear: women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran. For all football matches.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Open Medicare Data Helps Uncover Potential Hidden Costs Of Health Care

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:03:22 -0400

An interdisciplinary team of Indiana University scientists studying Medicare data have found an association between health care industry payments to medical providers for non-research expenses and what these providers charge for medical services — shedding new light on potential hidden costs to the public.

Their findings, published in Nature Communications, demonstrate that medical providers receiving higher amounts of industry payments tend to bill higher drug and medical costs. Specifically, they found that a 10 percent increase in industry payments to medical providers is associated with 1.3 percent higher medical costs and 1.8 percent higher drug costs.

For example, a $25 increase in annual industry payments to a typical medical provider would be associated with approximately $1,100 higher medical costs and $100 higher drug costs.

“Let’s be clear here, we should not find such an association,” said Jorge Mejia, co-author on the paper and an assistant professor of operations and decision technologies at the IU Kelley School of Business. “Our findings raise the possibility that medical providers may be unduly influenced by payments from the healthcare industry.”

It’s important to note that an association shows that two variables appear to change at the same time, whereas causality implies that one variable causes another variable to change. This study does not prove causality, which the researchers said would be difficult to do with secondary data.

Jorge Mejia’s co-authors were Amanda Mejia, assistant professor in the Department of Statistics, and Franco Pestilli, associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, both at the IU College of Arts and Sciences.

Amanda Mejia said the team controlled for several key variables to rule out the possibility of other drivers of the association between industry payments and medical costs.

“We found that the association was still there after taking into account the size of the practice, its location and drug prescribing levels,” she said.

Pestilli said the large Medicare data sets that the researchers used were made openly available as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

“Our research capitalized on such openly shared data,” Pestilli said. “We demonstrate the value of open data in providing society with critical insights on hidden costs that can be addressed at the policy level.”

But Jorge Mejia said transparency alone is not enough to fix these hidden costs. That’s why studies like this one are important; they help interpret the data so the public can better understand what it means.

“As a society, we have had the potential for quantifying and qualifying the influence of the industry on our medical costs,” he said. “However, we have not done so. For example, we are just discovering the extent to which certain health care companies may be involved in the current opioid crisis in the U.S. We need tools to guide patients and consumers with all the data that is available.”

To help achieve this goal, Jorge Mejia said he hopes Medicare will make it easier for researchers and the public to quantify the effect of the payments received by medical providers by adding the national physician identifier (NPI) to their Open Payments data set. Additionally, he hopes the research team’s findings will start a conversation about how to communicate this information to consumers.

“We have energy efficiency scorecards for appliances, cars and many consumer products,” Jorge Mejia said. “How can the public understand whether their physician is close to the health care industry? Instead of making this about whether it’s good or bad, I’d like to kickstart a conversation about how information can be delivered in a simple way. Let’s put patients in the driver’s seat.”

The researchers have several follow-up projects in progress, including one that aims to investigate how industry payments may drive future medical costs, which would bring them one step closer to establishing a causal relationship between payments and costs.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Romanian Court Rules Basescu Was Securitate Informer

Balkan Insight — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:03:03 -0400

By Marcel Gascón Barberá

Former Romanian president Traian Basescu worked as an informer for the country’s notorious communist-era secret police, the Securitate, the Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday.

The court confirmed the conclusion of an investigation conducted earlier by the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives, CNSAS, which Basescu has disputed. He said he would appeal.

“I take as the verdict of the court as it is. I will appeal the verdict in a higher instance,” the centre-right politician told the private news agency Mediafax after the court ruling was revealed.

In June this year, the CNSAS started court proceedings to ascertain whether Basescu, president between 2004 and 2014, had collaborated with the political police during the communist regime of 1948 to 1989.

According to the Romanian Intelligence Service documents researched by the CNSAS, the Securitate recruited Basescu in 1972 when he was a naval student.

His file was destroyed in 1979 without being put on micro-film, after Basescu joined the ruling Communist Party of Romania, PCR.

But the CNSAS found what appeared to be handwritten notes by Basescu himself. It maintains that he informed on his university colleagues and various foreigners he crossed paths with during his naval activities. According to this version of event, now upheld by the court, Basescu worked under the code name “Petrov”.

Basescu has repeatedly denied the accusations and has called the CNSAS conclusions politically motivated. “The CNSAS and I have completely different points of views. A third party, the judge, will reconcile us,” Basescu declared in June.

Basescu claimed that he only gave information to what he thought was the military counter-intelligence service. “I thought it was a service subordinated to the command of the navy,” he affirmed. “I didn’t know that the military counter-intelligence represented the Securitate,” he said.

A former ship captain who worked for the Romanian merchant navy during communism, Basescu made condemnation of the communist ideology and regime in Romania one of the pillars of his two terms as president. On his initiative, the Romanian parliament officially condemned the communist regime in 2006.

The CNSAS works closely with historians and other experts to establish which public figures worked for the Securitate or were placed under its surveillance.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Controlling Methane Is A Fast And Critical Way To Slow Global Warming

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:02:27 -0400

In independent studies, two Princeton University research teams recently identified surprisingly large sources of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, being leaked into the atmosphere. Pound for pound, methane causes a far greater warming effect in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide — 86-fold more heating over 20 years, and 35-fold more over the course of a century.

In one study, a team headed by Mark Zondlo, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton, looked at an area around western Pennsylvania rich with natural gas wells and found that a small number of these wells are “superemitters” of methane.

The other study came from the research group of Denise Mauzerall, a Princeton professor jointly appointed in civil and environmental engineering and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. By equipping fishing boats with sensors and sailing around offshore oil and gas rigs in the North Sea, the researchers found that these facilities leak substantially more methane than previously reported.

Just after these studies were released, the Trump administration announced plans to roll back restrictions on methane emissions.

Here, Mauzerall and Zondlo answer questions about their discoveries and the implications of changing regulations.

What is one thing you wish more people understood about methane?

Denise Mauzerall: Controlling methane emissions is an effective way to slow global warming. Because methane is very effective at trapping heat and has a relatively short lifetime of about a decade before it oxidizes to carbon dioxide, controlling its emissions is an effective way of reducing the heat trapped in the atmosphere now. It thus is very influential in determining how rapidly the planet warms.

Mark Zondlo: There is more methane in the atmosphere from human activities than natural sources. Yes, there are natural sources of methane such as wetlands — but anthropogenic [human] activities such as agriculture and fossil fuel extraction and processing now dominate methane emissions to the atmosphere.

Stepping back, how should we think about the role of methane in climate change? For example, if we could miraculously eliminate most methane leakage, how big an effect would it have?

MZ: The fastest way to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases significantly is by decreasing methane emissions. If we improve our practices right now and lower methane emissions, it will pay off quickly because the half-life of methane in the atmosphere is about a decade, and it wouldn’t take long for the current build up to begin to clear. Methane today accounts for about one-quarter of the greenhouse gas warming, so reducing its emissions can have a significant and fairly quick impact on climate. However, we are still talking decades for emissions from anthropogenic sources to be largely removed from the atmosphere, and this still only addresses one-quarter of the problem. It is an important step, however, that can happen quickly.

DM: Currently about two-thirds of methane emissions come from anthropogenic sources and one-third comes from natural sources. Globally the oil, gas and coal sectors emit about 30% of methane leaked to the atmosphere annually by human activities. About 30% comes from livestock, about 10% comes from landfills, about 10% comes from rice cultivation, 10% from other agricultural sources and 10% from wastewater. The predominant natural source is wetlands, which will increase as Arctic tundra thaws. A major concern is that as the climate warms, emissions from thawing tundra will lead to a feedback loop over which humans have little control. Warming tundra will release more methane, which accelerates warming and drives even more methane release.

What were the chief takeaways from your respective studies?

DM: The key finding from our study was that offshore oil and gas rigs in the North Sea leak more than twice as much methane as they currently report to the British government. When making measurements from fishing boats downwind of the rigs, we found leakage when they were in stand-by mode that was substantially higher than what they report using emission factors for active operations, such as flaring gas and transferring oil.

MZ: The Marcellus Shale basin, which stretches from West Virginia into New York state, is the most productive natural gas basin in the United States, accounting for 32% of all U.S. natural gas production and one of the most important globally. We conducted the most comprehensive measurement campaign in this basin, sampling nearly 18% of the total population of wells. We found that only 10% of the wells contributed to the majority (77%) of the methane emissions. These “superemitting” wells present real opportunities to make large cuts in emissions without having to retrofit every single well pad, which can be costly and time-consuming. In addition, our measurements of basin-scale emissions from well pads were nearly twice as large as EPA estimates. Overall, about 0.5% of the methane produced is leaking to the atmosphere from well pads. This methane can be recovered by finding and fixing these emissions, resulting in environmental and economic benefits.

What are the prospects of fixing these leaks?

DM: Once the location of these leaks is identified, fixing the leaks should be very feasible.

MZ: Now the challenge is to find why the emissions occur, under what conditions, how they change over time and how to fix them. Sometimes these are intentional — the pressure in local storage tanks builds up and requires venting. Sometimes these are unintentional, in that a valve is stuck open or a flange is leaking. There are an assortment of technologies now available to identify these superemitters, but it will require a dedicated monitoring program on service vehicles. Right now, the existing technologies to identify and find leaks are infrequently deployed and often have limited sensitivity unless they are located pretty close to the leak source.

What do you think about the federal government’s recent move to roll back methane regulation?

MZ: It is a step backwards and based upon many false assumptions. The argument has been rationalized by asserting that it is economical to capture and sell these emissions instead of letting them leak into the atmosphere, so companies would do this anyway and regulations are unnecessary. But if a company has a set amount of money for methane reduction or some other projects, it will invest in the one that makes the most profit — which rarely ever is leak identification and mitigation. There is a long history of corporate denials that leaks of these magnitudes even existed, not only at well pads but also in transmission, storage and distribution sectors. It is refreshing to see some large companies opposing the rollback — the scientific community in general has made it clear that leaks are happening, and it will take continued partnerships with industry to address the problem.

More generally, we need to get beyond this argument that if something has a natural source, it cannot be classified as a pollutant. There are natural sources of mercury, yet few advocate for mercury emissions. The same holds true for greenhouse gases — what matters is the human contribution above and beyond the natural levels. We have perturbed this greatly with carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and we are behind in reducing the emissions. Methane reduction offers a chance to fast-track some initial results.

DM: The federal government’s recent move to roll back regulations controlling methane leakage from the oil and gas industry is irresponsible and unjustifiable. Methane has monetary value and selling the methane that leaks offsets the cost of the controls. Much of the oil and gas industry supports the controls and has begun to implement them. Methane is also a precursor for surface ozone, which damages human health, agriculture and ecosystems, and so reducing methane emissions has direct co-benefits for human health and welfare as well as benefitting the climate. Slowing the rate of global warming is crucial and limiting the emissions of gases with high radiative forcing (i.e., high ability to trap heat), like methane, is critical to do that. In order to avoid catastrophic climate warming it will be necessary to decarbonize the global energy system by mid-century. As we move towards that goal, minimizing methane leakage is a necessary intermediate step to reduce the impact of our current natural gas system.

Eurasia Review

Asian shares gain on better Sino-U.S. trade tone, oil climbs - Reuters

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:02:00 -0400

Asian shares gain on better Sino-U.S. trade tone, oil climbs Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares started higher on Monday on hopes of an interim Sino-U.S. tariff deal after the two countries described their talks as ...

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Asian shares firmer on improved Sino-U.S. trade tone, oil up 1% - Reuters

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:02:00 -0400

Asian shares firmer on improved Sino-U.S. trade tone, oil up 1% Reuters

Asian shares started higher on Monday on hopes of an interim Sino-U.S. tariff deal after the two countries described their talks as "productive" and "constructive", ...

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Asian shares dip on geopolitical tensions, oil up 1% - Reuters

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:02:00 -0400

Asian shares dip on geopolitical tensions, oil up 1% Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares started higher on Monday on hopes of an interim Sino-U.S. tariff deal after the two countries described their talks as ...

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Eurasia Review: In Media Coverage Of Climate Change, Where Are The Facts?

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:01:40 -0400

The New York Times makes a concerted effort to drive home the point that climate change is real, but it does a poor job of presenting the basic facts about climate change that could convince skeptics, according to a review of the paper’s coverage since 1980.

Public polls show that Americans, whether agreeing or disagreeing with the idea that human activity is changing Earth’s climate, lack an understanding of the basic facts leading to this conclusion, says climate scientist David Romps, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of earth and planetary science. A large percentage of the public doesn’t know that global warming is happening now, that it’s caused by record levels of CO2 from fossil fuel burning, that 99% of climate scientists agree on this and that the changes are effectively permanent.

“If The New York Times isn’t doing it, my guess is that it is just not happening across print journalism,” Romps said. “One of the hopes is that, by at least pointing this out, it might occur to people to take a look at what kind of context is provided in news coverage of climate change.”

Romps and co-author Jean Retzinger, the former associate director of UC Berkeley’s Media Studies program, published their analysis in the journal Environmental Research Communications.

After more than a decade of research focused on how climate change affects the atmosphere — in particular, clouds and lightning — Romps became frustrated about the public’s lack of basic knowledge of the science that underlies the 99% consensus among climate scientists.

“The notion that there is a scientific consensus has been referred to as a gateway belief by people who study how the public thinks about climate change,” Romps said. “They find that, if you can get people to understand that fact, it kind of pries the door open and makes them open to learning more and potentially changing their minds.”

Yet, as of 2019, the fact of a scientific consensus is mentioned in a mere 4% of Times articles about climate change, he and Retzinger found. The fact that we are experiencing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that haven’t been seen in millions of years — and never before in human history — is mentioned in only 1% of the paper’s articles.

And the fact that climate change is permanent is mentioned in only 0.4% of articles.

“We are talking about an alteration of the planet’s climate, and in all of my conversations with people, no one has ever asked me how long it lasts,” Romps said. “I don’t understand how people can have any sort of opinion about global warming without knowing that fact: that it is effectively permanent. The time scale for drawing the CO2 anomaly back down to where it was 50 years ago is on the order of 100,000 years, 10 times longer than human civilization. So it is, for all intents and purposes, permanent. And each additional increment of warming is effectively permanent.”

Lack of facts sows confusion

A fourth climate-change fact he looked at — that CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning creates a greenhouse effect that warms the planet — was mentioned in only 0.1% of the articles. Many people confuse the effects of carbon dioxide with the ozone hole, which is caused by chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigerators, or think that warming is due to the heat produced by burning oil and gas.

His data show that, in the 1980s, when the concept of global warming was still new to many readers, the Times often referred to the mechanism of greenhouse warming and did so, in some years, in every article. But 20 years later, this mechanism is seldom mentioned, despite a whole new generation of readers.

The only fact mentioned regularly — in nearly one-third of all articles — is that the effects of climate change are being felt now. But of the 600 news articles mentioning climate change over the 38-year period, the vast majority contained none of the five basic climate facts. This occurred despite the ease with which the basic facts of climate science were embedded in articles that did mention these facts.

“We have this major problem: that people don’t seem to have a solid grasp of the fundamental ideas. And why would that be?” he asked. “There has been a well-funded campaign to spread misinformation and sow doubt about global warming, which has been very successful. On the other hand, climate scientists are not necessarily out there communicating effectively to the public.”

“After you finish school, you learn about science primarily through the news,” he added. “And if you are not getting appropriate context from that news coverage, you are going to be confused.”

Romps is embarking on an experiment to try to change this, partnering with UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism to offer fellowships to student environmental writers to discuss with climate scientists the basic facts about climate change and how best to convey them within news articles. If this proves effective in changing public understanding, it could open the door to a broader national discussion of climate change coverage in the media.

Paper of record

To assess whether the basic facts behind the scientific consensus about climate change are being communicated through the media, Romps and Retzinger focused on perhaps the number one paper of record in the nation, the Times.

“We chose The New York Times because it certainly has this reputation of being excellent in covering environmental issues and climate change, and I personally think it’s one of the best,” he said. “At the same time, I had this feeling from having read stories on climate that they didn’t convey the basic facts to readers, and that that might be a problem.”

They enlisted the help of a dozen undergraduate students to review New York Times articles mentioning climate change that were published between 1980 and 2018, in search of the key words employed when mentioning five basic facts: the consensus, mechanism, longevity, magnitude and immediacy of climate change.

They then searched for all articles that included these key words, and Romps read each one to judge whether or not it mentioned these five facts.

“I don’t think that everyone learning the basic facts I have outlined here is a solution in itself. But I do believe it is a necessary condition,” he said. “We are not going to make the progress we need until everyone from both political parties, from rural and urban areas, from all states, accept the fact that global warming is happening, it is caused by us, and that the solution is to stop burning fossil fuels. These are the basic facts that climate scientists know, policy wonks know, but somehow the broader public does not quite appreciate yet.”

In addition to his efforts to better communicate the facts of climate change, Romps hopes to set an example for those wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. Last year, he refused to fly to an awards presentation, and since January has not flown to any scientific meetings — a big drop from his typical yearly air mileage topping 100,000 miles. He’d like to deliver scientific papers to colleagues via video streaming, but this is not yet an accepted practice at annual meetings.

Nevertheless, he is heartened by younger people speaking out, and he supported the Sept. 20 worldwide climate strike.

“Being a climate scientist can be a fairly depressing occupation,” Romps said. “But seeing young people stand up and make their voices heard is really quite encouraging. There is hope. The youth have been heeding the call, and we need grown-ups to start heeding the call, too.”

Eurasia Review

Washington Free Beacon: CNN Host Criticizes Biden for Not Appearing on Any Sunday Shows This Year

Washington Free Beacon Staff — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:42 -0400

This week on the Sunday news shows: CNN host Brian Stelter called out Joe Biden for not appearing on any Sunday shows this year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin went on the offensive against Biden, and former secretary of state John Kerry said President Donald Trump is "correct" not to rush to war with Iran.

CNN Host: Biden Hasn’t Appeared On Sunday Shows In 2019

CNN host Brian Stelter hit Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for not doing any interviews on Sunday news shows this year.

"Biden has never sat down for a Sunday show interview all year long," the Reliable Sources host said. "I wonder if they are doing enough to combat Trump."

Stelter worried the Biden campaign wasn't doing enough to counter the narrative from Trump about stories surrounding Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and his foreign business dealings.

"The Biden campaign came out with a memo this weekend trying to diffuse this story," he added. "Here is a part of what the memo said at the end addressing the press. ‘Any article, segment, analysis, and commentary that does not demonstrably state at the outset that there is no factual basis for Trump's claims, and in fact that they are wholly discredited, is misleading readers and viewers.'"

The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal reported last week that an intelligence official was concerned about a call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. According to reports, Trump pressured Zelensky multiple times about cooperating with Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in investigating Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine.

Mnuchin, Pompeo Go On the Offensive Against Biden

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin went on the offensive during the Sunday news shows against Joe Biden, who is in the middle of a brewing controversy with President Donald Trump

Mnuchin addressed Biden's comment from over the weekend on CNN's State of the Union, where he claimed he never spoke with his son, Hunter Biden, about his overseas business dealings in the Ukraine. Mnuchin said those business dealings need to be addressed.

Steve Mnuchin: "Biden came out this weekend saying he never had any discussions with his son. His son came out & said he had had business discussions with his father, so I really think that the real issue here is not what the president said, but what, indeed, did Biden's son do." pic.twitter.com/RpjXZVB7Hu

— The Hill (@thehill) September 22, 2019

Pompeo appeared on ABC's This Week, where he said Biden needs to be investigated if evidence shows he improperly interfered in any investigation of his son's company.

"I do think if Vice President Biden behaved inappropriately, if he was protecting his son and intervened with the Ukrainian leadership in a way that was corrupt. I do think we need to get to the bottom of that," Pompeo said.

Kerry: Trump is ‘Correct' Not to Rush to War With Iran

Former secretary of state John Kerry on Sunday agreed with President Donald Trump on Iran, saying he was "correct" not to rush to war with Iran

Kerry, who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, said Trump is absolutely "correct to be evaluating sort of not being rushed into a corner to go to war" with Iran during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. He added, "That is what we shouldn't do."

Former Secretary of State @JohnKerry says "I believe Iran one way or another was behind the attack that took place." pic.twitter.com/0apLUMIGp6

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 22, 2019

He attempted to blame the Trump administration for tensions between the two countries, saying Tehran's more aggressive behavior is a result of Trump's "economic wars."

"It was entirely foreseeable that that would result in further conflict," Kerry said. "So we're seeing the unfolding of really a bankruptcy of approach."

The post CNN Host Criticizes Biden for Not Appearing on Any Sunday Shows This Year appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Washington Free Beacon

Eurasia Review: Iran To Propose Regional Initiative For Persian Gulf Security At UN

Tasnim News Agency — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:12 -0400

Iran’s president unveiled a new initiative for security of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, saying the “Coalition of Hope” scheme will be put forward in the forthcoming meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Addressing a Sunday military parade in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani said he will be attending the UN General Assembly in New York with the mottos “Coalition of Hope” and “Hormuz Peace Initiative”.

The essence of those Iranian initiatives are “friendship and hope”, he added.

“This year, we will be putting forward a plan at the United Nations, according to which the Islamic Republic of Iran –in cooperation with the regional countries– can ensure security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman with the help of the region’s countries,” the president added.

He also reiterated that the presence of foreign forces in the region endangers international sea routes and security of shipping, oil and energy industries.

“But the Islamic Republic of Iran’s approach entails alliance, unity and coordination with the regional countries,” he added.

As regards the US accusation that Iran has been involved in recent drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, Rouhani said those trying to blame the incidents in the region on Iran will be once again proved to be liars.

“If the outsiders are sincere and really after peace and security, they must stop deploying such an amount of dangerous weapons to the region and not turn our region into an arms race and stockpile, and if they really favor regional security, they must stay away from the region, because their presence has always been a predicament and burden on the region,” he underlined.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, Rouhani will leave Tehran for New York on Monday to participate in the 74th meeting of the UN General Assembly.

Back in 2013, he proposed an initiative dubbed “World Against Violence and Extremism” at the UNGA, which was later ratified by the international body.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Daily Rainfall Over Sumatra Linked To Larger Atmospheric Phenomenon

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:12 -0400

Around the globe, communities are concerned with rain and storms. An area known as the “Maritime Continent,” which includes major islands such as Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Papua New Guinea, along with a galaxy of smaller islands, experiences significant rainfall including periodic monsoonal rain, and flash flooding.

In a new study led by atmospheric scientist Giuseppe Torri at the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), researchers revealed details of the connection between a larger atmospheric phenomenon, termed the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the daily patterns of rainfall in the Maritime Continent.

The MJO circles the globe around the tropics and can affect weather on weekly to monthly time scales, alternately bringing cloudy, rain periods and sunny, drier periods.

Torri and co-authors found that the impact of the MJO on the daily rainfall patterns of Sumatra was quite significant. When the MJO was active near the Maritime Continent, there was more water vapor–and therefore greater potential for significant rain events–and more variations in water vapor throughout the day as compared to the suppressed phase. Also, clouds and rain seemed to move offshore at night faster during the active phase of the MJO.

The team relied on data from a network of GPS stations that were installed on Sumatra and on the neighboring islands by a team of scientists interested in monitoring tectonic activity along the western coast of Sumatra. As it turns out, the GPS signal is distorted by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. This distortion is bad news for people interested in location information–which is what the GPS technology was invented for. However, scientists, including UH Mānoa atmospheric sciences professor Steven Businger, realized that the distortion can tell us something about the state of the atmosphere and pioneered its use as a source of data.

With the extensive coverage of the GPS stations on the island of Sumatra, the team had a dataset that provided a highly detailed picture of the daily atmospheric changes.

“Given the existing scientific literature, we had a sense that the MJO had an impact on the local convection in the Maritime Continent,” said Torri. “One thing that was surprising to me was just how well we could see the convection propagate offshore in the late evening. This is thanks to the density of stations of the GPS network we considered.”

The MJO is arguably one of the most important phenomena on the planet, and can influence the weather and the climate of regions that are even thousands of miles away from the Maritime Continent. A better understanding of the MJO, and a good way to simulate it are key to better understanding our current and future climate.

While the current study furthers understanding of the impacts of the MJO on clouds and rain over Sumatra, Torri will team up with SOEST atmospheric scientist Alison Nugent to investigate the causes of these impacts and the mechanisms that control the offshore propagation of rainfall.

Eurasia Review

Eurasia Review: Evolution Of Learning Is Key To Better Artificial Intelligence

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:12 -0400

Since “2001: A Space Odyssey,” people have wondered: could machines like HAL 9000 eventually exist that can process information with human-like intelligence?

Researchers at Michigan State University say that true, human-level intelligence remains a long way off, but their new paper published in The American Naturalist explores how computers could begin to evolve learning in the same way as natural organisms did – with implications for many fields, including artificial intelligence.

“We know that all organisms are capable of some form of learning, we just weren’t sure how those abilities first evolved. Now we can watch these major evolutionary events unfold before us in a virtual world,” said Anselmo Pontes, MSU computer science researcher and lead author. “Understanding how learning behavior evolved helps us figure out how it works and provides insights to other fields such as neuroscience, education, psychology, animal behavior, and even AI. It also supplies clues to how our brains work and could even lead to robots that learn from experiences as effectively as humans do.”

According to Fred Dyer, MSU integrative biology professor and co-author, these findings have the potential for huge implications.

“We’re untangling the story of how our own cognition came to be and how that can shape the future,” Dyer said. “Understanding our own origins can lead us to developing robots that can watch and learn rather than being programmed for each individual task.”

The results are the first demonstration that shows the evolution of associative learning in an artificial organism without a brain. Here is a video showing the process.

“Our inspiration was the way animals learn landmarks and use them to navigate their environments,” Pontes said. “For example, in laboratory experiments, honeybees learn to associate certain colors or shapes with directions and navigate complex mazes.”

Since the evolution of learning cannot be observed through fossils – and would take more than a lifetime to watch in nature – the MSU interdisciplinary team composed of biologists and computer scientists used a digital evolution program that allowed them to observe tens of thousands of generations of evolution in just a few hours, a feat unachievable with living systems.

In this case, organisms evolved to learn and use environmental signals to help them navigate the environment and find food.

“Learning is crucial to most behaviors, but we couldn’t directly observe how learning got started in the first place from our purely instinctual ancestors,” Dyer said. “We built in various selection pressures that we thought might play a role and watched what happened in the computer.”

While the environment was simulated, the evolution was real. The programs that controlled the digital organism were subject to genetic variation from mutation, inheritance and competitive selection. Organisms were tasked to follow a trail alongside signals that – if interpreted correctly – pointed where the path went next.

In the beginning of the simulation, organisms were “blank slates,” incapable of sensing, moving or learning. Every time an organism reproduced, its descendants could suffer mutations that changed their behavior. Most mutations were lethal. Some did nothing. But the rare traits that allowed an organism to better follow the trail resulted in the organism collecting more resources, reproducing more often and, thus, gaining share in the population.

Over the generations, organisms evolved more and more complex behaviors. First came simple movements allowing them to stumble into food. Next was the ability to sense and distinguish different types of signals, followed by the reflexive ability to correct errors, such as trying an incorrect path, backing up and trying another.

A few organisms evolved the ability to learn by association. If one of these organisms made a wrong turn it would correct the error, but it would also learn from that mistake and associate the specific signal it saw with the direction it now knew it should have gone. From then on, it would navigate the entire trail without any further mistakes. Some organisms could even relearn when tricked by switching signals mid-trail.

“Evolution in nature might take too long to study,” Pontes said, “but evolution is just an algorithm, so it can be replicated in a computer. We were not just able to see how certain environments fostered the evolution of learning, but we saw populations evolve through the same behavioral phases that previous scientists speculated should happen but didn’t have the technology to see.”

Eurasia Review

The National Interest: All of the Reasons America's Aircraft Carriers Are Doomed

Robert Farley — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:00 -0400

Robert Farley

Security,

We know how to kill aircraft carriers—or at least we know how best to try to kill aircraft carriers. Submarine-launched torpedoes, cruise missiles fired from a variety of platforms and ballistic missiles can all give an aircraft carrier a very bad day.

Key Point: Aircraft carriers are instruments of geopolitical influence. As long as they serve usefully in that role, nations will seek means to neutralize them. The aircraft-carrier form has proven remarkably flexibly, serving in one way or another for nearly a hundred years. From the USS Forrestal on, the U.S. Navy supercarrier has existed in basically the same form since the 1950s, and is expected to continue operating into the latter half of the twenty-first century. At some point, the game will be up; carriers will no longer pack the offensive punch necessary to justify their vulnerability. It’s not obvious when that day will come, however; we may only find out after the destruction of one of the Navy’s prize possessions.

We know how to kill aircraft carriers—or at least we know how best to try to kill aircraft carriers. Submarine-launched torpedoes, cruise missiles fired from a variety of platforms and ballistic missiles can all give an aircraft carrier a very bad day. Of course, modern carriers have ways of defending themselves from all of these avenues of attack, and we don’t yet have any good evidence of the real balance between offensive and defensive systems.

But what of the future? How will we plan to kill carriers thirty years from now? Here are five problems that the next generation of aircraft-carrier architects will need to worry about.

Undersea Unmanned Vehicles

Submarines have long posed the deadliest threat to aircraft carriers. In World War II, every major carrier fleet suffered losses to submarines; in the Cold War, the U.S. Navy viewed Soviet subs as a critical problem. Against modern antisubmarine warfare capabilities, the biggest difficulties faced by a submarine involve finding a carrier, then getting into firing position (with either missiles or torpedoes) before the carrier’s aircraft and escorts can detect and kill the sub. If the boat’s commander isn’t suicidal, finding a potential avenue for escape is also an issue.

Read full article

The National Interest

"Harold Thomas Martin" - Google News: How much? Tompkins, Tioga county real estate sales, transactions - Ithaca Journal

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:00 -0400

How much? Tompkins, Tioga county real estate sales, transactions Ithaca Journal

Real estate transactions for June 23-29. TOMPKINS COUNTY. Ithaca City. Yeshi Tsondu Sold 507 Cascadilla St To Jay Angel For $160,936 On June 25.

"Harold Thomas Martin" - Google News

Emmy winners 2019: the full list - The Guardian

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:00 -0400

Emmy winners 2019: the full list The Guardian
Alex Borstein Wins Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Hollywood Reporter
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Paulo Costa blasts ‘shameful’ Jeremy Stephens for discontinuing after eye poke: He shouldn’t be allowed in UFC - Bloody Elbow

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 20:00:00 -0400

Paulo Costa blasts ‘shameful’ Jeremy Stephens for discontinuing after eye poke: He shouldn’t be allowed in UFC Bloody Elbow
Crowd Gets Furious After UFC Main Event Stoppage; Announcer Hides Under Table Deadspin
UFC Mexico City: Yair Rodriguez Octagon Interview UFC - Ultimate Fighting Championship
UFC commentator hides under a table as fans shower cage with bottles following UFC Mexico no-contest (VIDEO) RT
Eye poke ends UFC bout seconds in; fans erupt ESPN
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Sources -- Giants RB Barkley has high ankle sprain - ESPN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:59:19 -0400

Sources -- Giants RB Barkley has high ankle sprain ESPN

TAMPA, Fla. -- New York Giants star running back Saquon Barkley needed to be helped to the locker room after injuring his ankle late in the second quarter ...

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"house judiciary committee" - Google News: Pelosi Warns of ‘New Stage’ of Inquiry if Trump Blocks Whistle-Blower Complaint - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:58:00 -0400

Pelosi Warns of ‘New Stage’ of Inquiry if Trump Blocks Whistle-Blower Complaint The New York Times

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday called on the Trump administration to promptly turn over a secret whistle-blower complaint said to ...

"house judiciary committee" - Google News

C. C. Sabathia Says Goodbye at Yankee Stadium - The New York Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:52:00 -0400

C. C. Sabathia Says Goodbye at Yankee Stadium The New York Times
Aaron Judge homered in Sunday's win over Blue Jays YESNetwork
Luis Severino takes another huge step in easy Yankees win New York Post
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Trump visits 2 key states with leaders of India, Australia

Deb Riechmann | AP — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:49:56 -0400

President Donald Trump’s run-up to the U.N. General Assembly was a dash through two key political states with two world leaders at events that felt like his raucous campaign rallies

Omar: Biden not the candidate to 'tackle a lot of the systematic challenges that we have' | TheHill - The Hill

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:48:11 -0400

American Airlines flight forced to land because of unruly passenger, who yelled 'you're all screwed' - CNN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:47:00 -0400

‘Howdy, Modi!’: Trump hails Indian PM at ‘historic’ Texas rally - BBC News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:37:16 -0400

‘Howdy, Modi!’: Trump hails Indian PM at ‘historic’ Texas rally BBC News
Why we won't be cheering Modi and Trump in Houston CNN
At Rally for India’s Modi, Trump Plays Second Fiddle but a Familiar Tune The New York Times
PM Modi One Of America's Most Loyal Friends, Says Donald Trump NDTV
Trump teases that he’d like to visit India to watch an NBA game next month The Washington Post
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Miley Cyrus and girlfriend Kaitlyn Carter split after a month of dating: report - Fox News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:30:51 -0400

Editorial: Corbyn has stalled long enough – the time for Labour to back Remain is now - The Independent

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:29:17 -0400

Editorial: Corbyn has stalled long enough – the time for Labour to back Remain is now The Independent
UK could be better off outside EU says Corbyn Guardian News
Jeremy Corbyn faces calls to resolve Labour Brexit divisions BBC News
Labour-run property business hasn’t paid tax in 15 years despite raking in a rental income of nearly £20 mi The Sun
The failed Watson plot exposes what really scares Corbyn and his coterie The Guardian
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Poised QB Allen tosses 4 TDs in Panthers' victory - ESPN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:24:28 -0400

Seven takeaways from a busy Democratic presidential campaign weekend in Iowa | TheHill - The Hill

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:23:49 -0400

The National Interest: See This Aircraft Carrier? Meet USS Enterprise (It Changed Everything)

Michael Peck — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:23:00 -0400

Michael Peck

Security,

The Enterprise, or “Big E,” was commissioned on November 25, 1961. The ship’s subsequent twenty-five deployments read like a history of the Cold War and modern U.S. foreign policy. She made some serious history.

The USS Enterprise, hull number CVN-65, was officially decommissioned back in 2017, which means it is no longer officially on the Navy’s register (the ship was actually transferred to inactive status in 2012, when preparations began to dispose of its nuclear reactor).

The Enterprise, or “Big E,” was commissioned on November 25, 1961. The ship’s subsequent twenty-five deployments read like a history of the Cold War and modern U.S. foreign policy: the Big E participated in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, deployed six times to Vietnam, sailed to the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 India-Pakistan War, flew missions in Bosnia and supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Where there was trouble, the Enterprise was there.

But what was really remarkable about the Enterprise was that it marked the debut of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which are the backbone of U.S. naval power. Any warship is only as capable as the logistics that sustain it. Sail-powered vessels relied on the wind, which was a renewable resource but wasn’t always available when you needed to get moving. The switch to coal propulsion by World War I offered more reliable power, but coal was bulky and required large crews to shovel it into the engines, as well as nearby bases for replenishment. By World War II, ships ran on oil, but this still meant returning to port to refuel, or performing cumbersome refueling at sea from vulnerable tankers.

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The National Interest

Eurasia Review: Is Top Position Of US At UN Being Challenged By China? – OpEd

Shabbir H. Kazmi — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:21:47 -0400

According to Foreign Policy, prior to the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, two top State Department officials have raised alarm about the loss of diplomatic influence of the United States, as China mounts an ambitious effort to fill the vacuum.

The concerns are emerging at a time when the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO), which oversees US relations with the UN and other international organizations, is enduring a sustained period of turmoil marked by sagging morale, staff flight and difficulties in recruiting fresh talent.

US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, who was recently confirmed, has yet to take up her assignment in New York. John Sullivan, the US Deputy Secretary of State, and David Hale, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, touched on those issues.

They also expressed particular concern about China’s strategic goal of deepening its influence in the UN and other international organizations. The coming months will be ‘key times’ for the bureau to promote US national security interests in international institutions with the upcoming UN General Assembly. It has only gotten harder as the US faces more rigorous attempts, and campaigns by China to gain greater and greater influence over these organizations.

Over the last two and a half years, the US has been struggling to rally support within UN to contain the influence of rival powers from Iran to Russia to China, which has effectively mobilized UN backing for its Belt and Road Initiative, despite US efforts to counter it.

President Donald Trump’s administration has also largely dismissed repeated warnings from allies and others that its own retreat from multilateral diplomacy would create a vacuum that could promote chaos or leave room for the rise of China and other. President Trump and his policy of isolationism has created enormous vacuum around the world,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had said in June 2018.

A question is often raised, who will fill this vacuum?

The rise of China on the world stage has been an inevitable out of its increasing economic clout, which has enabled it to leverage massive foreign investment for broader support for its foreign policy. The US allies, particularly from Europe, have been warning Trump administration officials that the US retreat from international organizations and trade agreements would accelerate China’s growing influence.

At present the two most daunting challenges to the multilateral order are declining US power and emerging Chinese clout in global organizations. Over the last decade, there has been an observable decline in the US capacity to shape multilateral affairs. The muted US response to China’s growing diplomatic influence in multilateral institutions is inconsistent with its own effort to contain the rise of a rival power.

Last month, the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General issued a scathing report accusing some of the top officials of hostile treatment of employees and harassment of career employees based on claims that they were disloyal due to their perceived political views. Some 50 of IO’s 300 domestic employees have left the bureau since 2018 and nearly all of the former employees stated that poor leadership of the bureau contributed to their decision to depart.

It is believed that the bureau has prioritized key issues that are important to the White House, backing efforts to limit access to reproductive health care, rolling back funding for refugees, and advocating budget cuts to UN programs. Regional and subject experts have been frozen out of meetings where decisions on policy are made.

Trump is expected to highlight the global assault on religious freedom when he addresses the UN General Assembly on 24th September. He has surrounded himself with aides who are deeply skeptical of the United Nations and have sought to pare back the US role and funding in the institution. Former NSA director John Bolton has long railed against the international institution as an ineffective and bloated bureaucracy. The head of the White House Office of Management and Budget has advocated, unsuccessfully, billions of dollars in cuts to US contributions to programs for the UN and other international organizations. Under Trump, the US has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council and pushed to cut off funding to the UN Population Fund and Palestinian refugee agency.

Chinese nationals have seen increasing success competing for top jobs in the UN and other international organizations. In June, China outmaneuvered the US in the campaign for the top job at the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, delivering Washington a humbling defeat at UN.

Analysts say Beijing’s growing clout in the international institutions and the US pulling back is a growing concern. Beijing’s favored candidate, a Chinese vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, won a rare first-round victory, receiving 108 of the 191 votes in secret balloting. A French candidate supported by the European Union captured 71 votes. The US, which broke with its European allies, backed a Georgian candidate who could secure only 12 votes. With a victory for China looking sure the US circulated a paper shortly before the vote to delegates urging them to back any candidate capable of defeating the Chinese.

The US contended that Chinese leaders at INTERPOL, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have demonstrated a bias towards Chinese foreign policy and a lack of transparency and accountability. It also said the Chinese candidate has shown a blatant disregard for critical issues, such as those involving sexual harassment and whistleblower protection.

At the same time, the bureau seems to have done little to promote the US nationals for jobs at the UN. One IO staffer noted that the department’s five-member unit responsible for promoting jobs for the US citizens in international organizations had shrunk to zero. It was also asked what strategy was being considered to change that. The US citizens have been saying that China’s ambitions in international organizations should be a key priority for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. It is also being said that the Department was on ‘back foot’ during the tenure of former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Implementing administration policy with the White House, the National Security Council, and other agencies has been a challenge.

It has been found that senior State Department officials are often paralyzed by a fear stepping out of line with the White House, particularly when it comes to politically sensitive relations with China.

A certain timidity by senior career officials and political appointees have been witnessed when it comes to engaging more proactively on China, fearing they might get “crosswise” with the president or his trade representative if they promoted policies that threatened to disrupt trade negotiations with Beijing. The IO bureau was at the center of action in diplomatic negotiations at the United Nations. The bureau had been a principal player in UN summitry but that over the last few years that power has withered away.

Eurasia Review

Celebrity chef Carl Ruiz dead at 44 - New York Daily News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:21:00 -0400

Celebrity chef Carl Ruiz dead at 44 New York Daily News

Celebrity chef Carl Ruiz, the owner of La Cubana restaurant and frequent Food Network guest, has died, the restaurant said.

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The National Interest: ASEAN Wants a U.S. Counterbalance to Chinese Regional Ambitions

Richard Javad Heydarian — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:17:00 -0400

Richard Javad Heydarian

Security, Americas

The ASEAN-U.S. Maritime exercises were aimed at China, not directly in terms of military drills and assets, but instead strategically, namely by signaling shared concerns over rising maritime tensions in the region.

Reflecting on the future of Sino-American competition in Asia, the late Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew argued that there is a widely “held consensus that the U.S. presence in the region should be sustained,” because “military presence does not need to be used to be useful,” and that American “presence [alone] makes a difference and makes for peace and stability in the region.” An enlightened realist, Lee saw this formula most relevant in the case of the South China Sea disputes, since “China will not let an international court arbitrate territorial disputes in the South China Sea”—a claim that proved prophetic, when China categorically rejected the Arbitral Tribunal award at The Hague years later.

For the Singaporean leader, the best antidote to Chinese revanchist instincts and defiance of international law is “the [continued] presence of U.S. firepower in the Asia-Pacific” so that the “[United Nations] Law of the Sea [will] prevail.” In short, he saw international law effect so long as it’s anchored by America’s naval prowess. And it’s precisely within this context, namely Southeast Asian nations’ desire for an American counterbalance to Chinese hegemonic ambitions, that one should understand the relevance of the inaugural ASEAN-U.S. Maritime Exercise (AUMX) in early-September. The five-days-long exercise covered a vast expanse of waters, stretching from the Sattahip naval base in Chonburi province in Gulf of Tonkin to Cape Cà Mau on the Cà Mau Peninsula in Vietnam.

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Panthers vs. Cardinals Week 3 Highlights | NFL 2019 - NFL

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:16:15 -0400

Panthers vs. Cardinals Week 3 Highlights | NFL 2019 NFL

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The National Interest: Welcome to the Arctic Wars

Lyle J. Goldstein — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:16:00 -0400

Lyle J. Goldstein

Security, Asia

Moscow does not fear Beijing’s keen interest in the Arctic and this may foreclose Washington’s plans to adopt a “wedge” strategy.

Amidst the swirl of U.S.-China relations was the recent announcement that the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) would accelerate deployments to the western Pacific in order to counter Chinese “gray zone” tactics. That sounds nice in theory, but then the USCG is chronically underfunded, overworked, and seems to now be coping with the ever more common disasters accompanying rapid climate change. Indeed, taxpayers may scratch their heads in wonder if the single most effective agency of the federal government is distracted from its core missions along America’s coasts. Never mind that America’s best and brightest “coasties” will be confronting a China Coast Guard (CCG) “on steroids,” which is actually orders of magnitude larger (measured in medium and large cutters), especially in the far reaches of the western Pacific.

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The National Interest: Facial Recognition Meets the Fourth Amendment Test

Amitai Etzioni — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:15:00 -0400

Amitai Etzioni

Security, Americas

There may be no way to address the overarching fears all new surveillance technologies raise; however, major concerns can be addressed without slowing the use of facial recognition.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials were able to secure grainy images of hijackers as they navigated the airports on the morning of their assault. The authorities were frantically trying to establish their identities in order to determine who helped them carry out the attacks and whether they had associates on the lam, planning other assaults. However, it took weeks to identify them. As of September 28, 2001, the FBI was still working to confirm their identities. Unable to close the matter on its own, the FBI released nineteen photographs, along with possible names and numerous aliases, seeking help from the public to fully identify the terrorists. Today, using facial recognition (FR), law enforcement could have identified them within three minutes.

This stunning figure is based on a study led by Daniel Steeves, chief information officer for the Ottawa Police Service, which conducted a six-month test of the use of FR in a robbery-investigation unit. It found that the tool “lowered the average time required for an officer to identify a subject from an image from 30 days to three minutes.”

On June 28, 2018, a gunman opened fire at the office of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland. The Anne Arundel County police department captured the suspect, however he refused to cooperate and it took a considerable amount of time to use his fingerprints to identify him. Instead, the police used a state database of driver’s license and mugshot photos and established his identity on the spot.

In New York City, FR has been employed for a wide range of public goods. These include the arrests of a suspected rapist, of a person who pushed another onto the subway tracks, the identification of a hospitalized woman suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the identification of a child sex trafficker sought by the FBI. Over the course of 2018, NYC detectives requested 7,024 FR searches, resulting in 1,851 possible matches and 998 arrests.

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www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security: Iran threatens 'full destruction' of U.S., allies if attacked

Ben Wolfgang — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:14:52 -0400

Top Iranian officials on Sunday denied involvement in the recent attacks on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure and issued new threats to the U.S. and its allies, vowing "the full destruction of any aggressor" that tests Tehran.

The warnings came on the heels of Friday's announced deployment of more U.S. troops ...

www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security

The National Interest: How Not to Confront China

Ali Wyne, James Dobbins — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:14:00 -0400

Ali Wyne, James Dobbins

Security, Asia

The Trump administration is confronting China in a manner that may be unlikely to advance U.S. competitiveness or enlist much support abroad.

President Donald Trump issued a bold declaration late last month: “We don’t need China and, frankly, would be better off without them.”

Most U.S. observers agree that Washington needed to recalibrate its policy towards Beijing. The latter has grown more authoritarian as it has become more prosperous, defying the longstanding Western hope that the adoption of market-oriented reforms would produce steps toward political liberalization. China’s militarization of the South China Sea and its predatory trade practices have also helped to persuade even many of President Trump’s detractors that he has spurred an essential debate on U.S. policy towards China.

Yet, having concluded that China is America’s foremost challenger, his administration is confronting it in a manner that may be unlikely to advance U.S. competitiveness or enlist much support abroad.

Consider five points.

First, the administration is undercutting America’s ability to form a coalition that can manage China’s resurgence. It has expressed little interest in continuing negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union (EU) and has abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), dovetailing with the president’s oft-expressed view that America’s friends treat it more poorly than its competitors. Even before it imposed its first tranche of tariffs on China, in July 2018, the administration had penalized exports from Canada, the EU, Japan, Mexico and South Korea.

China has good reason to believe it can withstand unilateral U.S. pressure. Its gross domestic product is already two-thirds as large as America’s, and even if its growth rate decelerates significantly, it will likely overtake the United States in absolute economic size well before the middle of the century. If the United States hopes to compel China to pursue structural economic reforms, it will likely need the support of as many European and Asian partners as possible.

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Source: Edelman injured ribs, should be OK - ESPN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:11:34 -0400

Source: Edelman injured ribs, should be OK ESPN

Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman injured his chest in the second quarter when Jets defensive lineman Henry Anderson landed on him.

View full coverage on Google News

The National Interest: How Iran or Russia Could Fight America in a War: Kill the GPS

Kris Osborn — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:11:00 -0400

Kris Osborn

Technology, Americas

It is the key to America's modern military.

Key point: The military relies on GPS and it would likely be destroyed in a war. This is why backups to GPS are being worked on.

Since the days of the Gulf War debut of a host of new precision weaponry and communications technology, the US military has increasing developed GPS-dependent drones, satellites, force tracking systems and a wide range of weapons.

While such things, such as Air Force Joint Direct Attack Munitions for the Air Force, or the Army’s GPS-enabled Blue Force Tracking succeeded in ushering in a new generation of advanced combat operations – in more recent
years potential adversaries have become adept at closing the technical gap with the US. As part of this, the margin of US military technological superiority is challenged, matched and, in some cases, outdone.

Advanced jamming techniques, electronic warfare and sophisticated cyberattacks have radically altered the combat equation – making GPS signals vulnerable to enemy disruption.

Accordingly, there is a broad consensus among military developers and industry innovators that far too many necessary combat technologies are reliant upon GPS systems. Weapons targeting, ship navigation and even small handheld solider force-tracking systems all rely upon GPS signals to operate.

As a result there is increased focus within the military community on combat technologies that can provide what the military calls precision, navigation and timing (PNT) for a wide range of systems.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is working with industry to test and refine an emerging radio frequency force-tracking technology able to identify ground forces’ location without needing to rely upon GPS.

The technology utilizes a ground operated handheld device which uses an algorithm to aggregate signals of opportunity from various radio frequencies, said Mark Smearcheck, AFRL electronics engineer, in a written statement several months ago.

“By receiving and processing various radio frequency sources not designed for navigation purposes, the new system connects to a smartphone and is designed to pinpoint a user’s location without relying on GPS,” Smearcheck said.

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The National Interest: The B-1B Bomber Will Have Hypersonic Missiles

Military and Aerospace Electronics — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:11:00 -0400

Military and Aerospace Electronics

Security, Americas

The way of the future.

Key point: Hypersonic missiles will expand the destructive power of the B-1B bomber.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The B-1B jet bomber fleet may be tired and war weary after constant deployments overseas, but the U.S. Air Force is continuing to look at how to improve the aircraft's weapons payload as it enters the back end of its career. The Drive reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

11 Sept. 2019 -- This goes far beyond adding new avionics to its flight deck, new sensors, and communications gear. The flying force is now exploring ways to give the heavy-hitting Bone even more magazine capacity than it already has and the ability to carry outsized hypersonic missiles in its internal weapons bay.

The core of these exploratory efforts is centered around two latent features that were built into the swing-wing bomber's design many decades ago. The B-1B was built with external hardpoints to carry large nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

These hardpoints were never really activated in a significant manner operationally, that is aside from the one under its right 'neck' area that it has used to mount the Sniper Advanced Targeting pod in recent years. The cruise missile racks themselves were pulled out of service completely following the B-1B losing its nuclear delivery role due to the START treaty.

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The National Interest

Eurasia Review: Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Sends New Message To Terrorists

Fars News Agency — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:04:32 -0400

The leader of the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist organization Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has released a new audio message inviting militants to join the ISIL, trying to boost their morale, the Arabic-language media outlets said.

The Arabic-language TV network Al-Alam reported that al-Baghdadi in his message has asserted that after five years since its establishment, the ISIL is still active and continues its operation.

The ISIL ringleader reiterated that the ISIL will welcome the militants who would join the terrorist organization.

“The ISIL terrorists in a war of attrition has targeted 11 countries while conducting 63 military operations in three days and hitting targets in 10 provinces,” al-Baghdadi said.

The ISIL ringleader also warned the US troops and their allies in Mali, Niger, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya and Asian regions that they will face a fate similar to the US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Al-Baghdadi’s audio message comes while the self-proclaimed caliphate of the ISIL that declared existence in 2014 is gone and its militants are fleeing in Iraqi and Syrian deserts.

In a relevant development earlier in September, a relative of al-Baghdadi said that the ISIL ringleader has recently admitted extensive differences among the terrorist group’s commanders, acknowledging that he has lost his position.

The Arabic-language al-Qaza newspaper quoted Ibrahim Ali al-Badri, al-Baghdadi’s cousin, as saying that in his latest meeting with the ISIL leader, he admitted that all of his aides have rebelled against him and differences among high ranks have gone so wide that the Arab and foreign commanders are plotting a coup now.

The cousin has confessed to the Iraqi judiciary officials that al-Baghdadi’s bodyguard has transferred him from al-Sha’afah region in Eastern Deir Ezzur to an area 10 to 15 minutes away which hosted the ISIL ringleader’s nearly 150-square-meter hideout.

Al-Badri added that al-Baghdadi has started developing wrath at the Tunisian and Saudi members of the ISIL for sowing discord among the terrorists and for their extremist behavior, and disclosed that the ISIL ringleader is sufferring acute illness and his left ear had also undergone surgerical operations in Albu Kamal region in Syria.

Earlier, Head of the Iraqi parliament’s Security Committee Sadeq al-Hosseini had said that the ISIL had lost 13 of its emirs (senior commanders) and is now facing a vacuum in the leadership.

Relevant reports said last month that al-Baghdadi had chosen one of the Iraqi commanders of the terrorist group in Mosul as his successor.

The Arabic-language Baghdad al-Youm news website affiliated to the ISIL quoted Fazel Abu Raqif, an Iraqi security expert, as saying that Abdollah Qardash, one of the inmates in Bouka prison near the town of Um al-Qasr in Iraq, which was protected by the US, and the Mufti of al-Qaeda, was adopted as al-Baghdadi’s successor.

He added that Qardash was one of the dangerous commanders close to Baghdadi, noting that he was the first person who joined the ISIL leader after Mosul’s collapse.

His remarks came as reports said late in July that al-Baghdadi was hiding in Syria after he was paralyzed in Iraq’s recent anti-terror operations.

“Al-Baghdadi together with a number of his Arab and foreign aides are presently in Syria as he is feeling too much danger after several ISIL commanders were killed in Iraqi Army’s military operations on ISIL’s hideouts in Western Iraq,” Head of Iraq’s Intelligence Forces Abu Ali al-Basri told the Arabic-language al-Sabah newspaper.

He noted that al-Baghdadi was taken a defensive position under threat by Iraq’s intelligence forces, escaping battle with the Syrian and Iraqi armies.

Al-Basri noted that al-Baghdadi was still very much popular among his foreign, Arab and Iraqi militants, and said that the ISIL ringleader is now replacing some his commanders after he lost a number of his militants and aides in a joint military operation by the Iraqi intelligence forces and the Syrian Army.

He reiterated that al-Baghdadi had been paralyzed after he sustained a spinal cord injury in the Iraqi forces’ attack on a meeting between him and his aides in al-Hojin region before the ISIL left the region in 2018.

Eurasia Review

Beyoncé Turns Heads at Jay-Z's Mom's Birthday Party - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:02:42 -0400

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Is the tech bubble about to burst all over again? - The Times

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:01:00 -0400

Is the tech bubble about to burst all over again? The Times
Pressure Mounts on WeWork CEO Adam Neumann as Board Weighs Coup Bloomberg
Some WeWork board members reportedly looking to remove Adam Neumann as CEO CNN
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Boeing's withdrawal from the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program must not cause delays - DefenseNews.com

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:00:51 -0400

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Boeing sent seismic shock waves through the defense acquisition system this past July when it announced it would not compete for the U.S. Air Force's Ground ...

Thomas Cook's demise should worry the entire travel industry - The Independent

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:00:02 -0400

Thomas Cook's demise should worry the entire travel industry The Independent
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The National Interest: Why Police Love Glocks and Sig Sauer Guns in a Shootout

Kyle Mizokami — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 19:00:00 -0400

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

These are the 5 best guns for the police.

Key Point: Approximately 93 percent of gun homicides in the United States are committed with handguns. Concealable and intimidating, handguns are an attractive choice for criminals. As a result, it is rare that a law enforcement officer needs more than a handgun to equal the firepower of criminals, although the 7 percent of gun homicides committed with rifles and shotguns shows a need for police to also have long guns available and at the ready. With that in mind, here are five guns well suited for police, including handguns, rifles and shotguns.

Glock 22

Originally developed to fulfill a pistol requirement for the Austrian Army, the Glock 17 became a worldwide phenomenon, winning fans with armed forces, police organizations, and gun enthusiasts everywhere. The G17 was one of the first “Wonder Nines,” high-capacity nine-millimeter pistols that carried fifteen or more rounds of ammunition in a double-stack magazine. The Glock 22 is the 17’s cousin, modified to carry fifteen rounds of .40 caliber ammunition—and still weighing just over thirty-two ounces, making it comfortable to carry all day. The gun achieves this by using a metal slide but a polymer frame, saving weight. The G22 is used by several law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI.

Glock 21

One of the very first Glock variants was the Glock 21. The G21 is essentially the exact same pistol as the Glock 17, only scaled up to accept the .45 ACP round. The Glock 21 can carry ten rounds of .45 ACP ammunition, two rounds more than the dominant .45 ACP platform for the past century, the 1911A1 series of pistols. At thirty-eight ounces loaded, the Glock 21 weighs ten ounces less than a 1911A1 pistol. This is primarily due to the use of a polymer frame and simplicity of design, which includes fewer steel parts. Although the Glock 21 has a lighter recoil, it is still very acceptable and similar to the heavier 1911A1. It is also considerably easier to maintain than John Browning’s 107-year-old design. The G21 is a useful option for police who want a heavier round but an ammo magazine that allows for a greater margin of error.

Sig Sauer P226

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The National Interest

Rams vs. Browns odds, line: Sunday Night Football picks, predictions from dialed-in expert who's 24-10 on L.A. games - CBS Sports

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:58:00 -0400

Rams vs. Browns odds, line: Sunday Night Football picks, predictions from dialed-in expert who's 24-10 on L.A. games CBS Sports
Cleveland Browns: Terry’s Talkin’ and worrying about game with L.A. Rams cleveland.com
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6-year-old arrested after having temper tantrum at school, grandmother says - WFTV Orlando

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:57:13 -0400

6-year-old arrested after having temper tantrum at school, grandmother says WFTV Orlando
Florida officer suspended after arresting two kids, ages 6 and 8, at school NBC News
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Internal investigation launched after Orlando officer arrests 6-year-old, 8-year-old WFLA
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J.A. Happ shake-up gives insight to Yankees' playoff plan - New York Post

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:56:00 -0400

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Aaron Judge homered in Sunday's win over Blue Jays YESNetwork
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Eurasia Review: Experts Blame Poor Law Enforcement, Dismal Funds For Indonesia Forest Fires

BenarNews — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:52:47 -0400

By Ahmad Syamsudin

Poor law enforcement, corruption and scant government funding contributed to recurrent agricultural fires that have ravaged large swathes of forest in Indonesia and engulfed parts of the country and its neighbors with noxious smoke and ash, experts said Friday.

Using fires to clear land is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years under Indonesia’s 1999 law on the environment, but local leaders often turned a blind eye to the practice, said Herry Purnomo, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“Economic incentives to use fires are huge. To clear land without burning it can cost about 5.5 million rupiah ($391) per hectare, but with fires you only need 300,000 rupiah (U.S. $21) and that’s a gap that is hard to resist,” Herry told BenarNews.

Haze from fires currently burning out of control in Indonesia has been the worst since 2015, authorities said. The smog has forced the closure of many schools across the region. Health officials in affected countries have warned about the air pollution being toxic, and people have complained about difficulties breathing.

By the end of this week, the haze had reached Thailand and the Philippines after blanketing parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Reports emerged that hundreds of endangered orangutans on Borneo Island were also suffering from breathing in the dirty air.

According to Herry, local leaders who fear losing votes for cracking down on the practice was a factor in weak law enforcement, especially during election seasons.

“Law enforcement rarely exists on the ground,” Herry said. “The central government often blames local governments, but local officials have to face their own people and can’t just stop the practice without providing alternatives that don’t cost much.”

Small farmers, corporations, as well as members of the local business, political, military and police elite are all responsible for the fires on Indonesia’s Sumatra and Borneo islands, he said.

This week, Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry blamed the country’s timber and plantation industries for the recurring forest fires, saying in a statement that only about 22 percent, or 2,179 companies with forestry permits, had submitted mandatory reports on fire control.

“Law enforcement is not strong enough against mid-level offenders, who are organized but without legal entities,” Herry said.

The government had not spent enough money on early fire detection efforts involving local communities, he said.

“In some cases, only 1 million rupiah (U.S. $71) is allocated per month for 10 people. How can they conduct patrols and buy gasoline for their motorcycles?” Herry said.

The environment and forestry ministry only has a budget of 7 trillion rupiah (U.S. $497.000) while it oversees 125 million hectares (309 million acres) of forest, he noted.

Police: Hundreds named as suspects

In Jakarta, national police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal said 244 people and six plantation and timber companies had been named suspects in connection with the fires.

“The number of companies to be named suspects will certainly increase. We are working hard to gather evidence and to enforce the law to prevent a repeat of the fires,” he said.

Air quality has markedly improved in Riau province on Sumatra, Iqbal told reporters. But toxic haze has forced neighboring Malaysia to close more than 2,000 schools, as air quality deteriorated to “very unhealthy” levels on an official index in many parts of the country.

Daniel Murdyarso, a forestry professor at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said a lack of deterrence could be one of the culprits.

“What is needed is to create a deterrent effect by imposing multiples charges – environmental, criminal and corruption – on offenders. This should be applied to all, including those who buy land that has been cleared by burning,” Daniel told BenarNews.

He said despite a ban on land-clearing by fire, setting fire to weeds and discarded biomass by local farmers was still not considered a legal violation.

He urged the government to involve local communities more in preventing forest fires.

“The government can’t go it alone. Its authority must be used to mobilize communities and enforce the law to create public order,” he said.

Some relief from rain

In Central Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo, rain induced by cloud seeding brought a respite on Friday for some communities, said Agus Wibowo, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).

A CASA C-212 aircraft dropped 800 kilos (1,700 pounds) of salt to create artificial rain over Pulang Pisau regency in Central Kalimantan, resulting in a 30-minute downpour, Agus said.

“Weather modification operations will continue and intensify to extinguish forest fires so that we will see clear skies again,” he said in a statement.

However, air quality remained at hazardous levels in parts of the province, with almost 500 fire hotspots detected, according data released by BNPB on Friday.

In total, 2,873 hotspots were detected across six provinces on Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian name for Borneo, with air quality indexes showing readings ranging from hazardous to moderate, BNPB said.

The agency said more than 884,000 patients with respiratory problems had been recorded in the six provinces since February, when the current bout of forest fires began.

There are no official estimates available on the extent of losses from the haze, but BNPB said almost 330,000 hectares (815,000 acres) of forest have been ravaged since the onset of the fires this year.

BNPB chief Doni Monardo inspected burned out areas in Kalimantan in a helicopter and concluded that the fires were deliberately lit, Agus said.

“There was a regular pattern and only areas outside plantations were burned,” Agus told BenarNews.

More than 29,000 workers and 44 helicopters had been deployed to extinguish the fires, a sharp increase from more than 9,000 a week ago, the disaster management agency said Friday.

‘They create trouble every year’

Haze blown by monsoon winds has also begun affecting some areas of the Philippines, officials in Manila said Friday.

Light to moderate haze was covering the southern city of Zamboanga, the central cities of Cebu and Dumaguete and the western province of Palawan, Landrico Dalida Jr., the deputy administrator of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, told the Associated Press.

“It’s visible, meaning there are particles that are really coming from those areas in Indonesia and they reach us,” Dalida said.

Air quality in some parts of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, hit unhealthy and hazardous levels on Friday, authorities said.

On Wednesday, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said his government was considering a law to penalize local companies that refuse to shoulder responsibility for fires burning in estates they own in Indonesia.

“We also want to take action against Malaysian companies which have estates outside Malaysia, which are contributing towards the haze because of burning in their estates,” Mahathir told reporters.

Indonesian authorities have named local subsidiaries of four Malaysian palm oil conglomerates –Sime Darby Plantation, IOI Corporation, TDM Berhad and Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad –among those accused of causing the forest fires.

In Singapore, air quality improved on Friday, with the 24-hour Pollutant Standard Index reading at 59 to 64, within the moderate range, the Straits Times reported.

Smog from Sumatra has severely affected five southern-most provinces in Thailand and is expected to stay for another three days, Thananchai Wannasut, the environmental director in Songkhla province, said Friday.

“On Sept. 18, we measured fine particles at 100 micrograms per cubic meters of air and 230 micrograms at its peak, the worst in 3-year period,” Thananchai told BenarNews.

The country’s air safety level is 50 micrograms per cubic meters of air.

Meanwhile, Thai Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul said he had ordered local health authorities to prepare masks for residents. He warned people to seek immediate treatment in cases of breathing difficulty, coughing or dizziness.

At the Indonesian consular office in Songkhla, a small group of residents gathered to urge Indonesia to solve the haze problem.

“We demand that the Indonesian government solve the issue as soon as possible, prevent occurrences of the issue as they create trouble every year,” Sarawuth Srisong, a participant in the small protest rally, told BenarNews.

Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok and Aminah Farid in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

Eurasia Review

GM strike: UAW strike continues in Detroit as autoworkers demand protections in changing industry - CBS News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:48:00 -0400

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Eurasia Review: Undervalued Wilderness Areas Can Cut Extinction Risk In Half

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:46:26 -0400

Wilderness areas, long known for intrinsic conservation value, are far more valuable for biodiversity than previously believed, and if conserved, will cut the world’s extinction risk in half, according to a new study published in the journal Nature.

Wilderness areas – where human impact has been absent or minimal – are dwindling. The latest maps show over 3 million square kilometres (1.15 million square miles) of wilderness destroyed since the 1990s (an area the size of India), and that less than 20 percent of the world can still be called wilderness. Many of these areas are found outside of national parks and other protected areas. Until know, the direct benefits of wilderness for stopping species extinction were largely unknown.

By taking advantage of the new global biodiversity modelling infrastructure “BILBI” developed at CSIRO, which is able to provide fine-scale estimates of probability of species loss around the globe, and integrating this with the latest human footprint map generated by the University of Queensland (UQ), University of Northern British Colombia and WCS, a collaboration of scientists demonstrated that today many wilderness areas are critical to prevent the loss of terrestrial species in many areas of the world.

“Wilderness areas clearly act as a buffer against extinction risk, the risk of species loss is over twice as high for biological communities found outside wilderness areas. But wilderness habitat makes an even larger contribution, as some species can occur both inside and outside wilderness; this habitat is essential to support the persistence of many species that otherwise live in degraded environmental conditions,” said Moreno Di Marco of CSIRO Land and Water, the lead author of the study.

The research showed the differing roles of wilderness around the world, with some areas playing an extraordinary role in their respective regional contexts, where their loss would drastically reduce the probability of persistence of biodiversity. Examples of such areas include parts of the Arnhem Land in Australia (covered by several indigenous protected areas), areas surrounding Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon, forests in southern British Columbia (which are only partly protected), and savannah areas inside and outside the Zemongo reserve in the Central African Republic.

Said the paper’s senior author, James Watson of WCS and UQ: “This research provides the evidence for how essential it is for the global conservation community specifically target protecting Earth’s remaining wilderness. These places are getting decimated and beyond crucial for saving biodiversity, they are essential for abating climate change, for regulation of biogeochemical and water cycles, and are ensuring the long-term bio-cultural connections of indigenous communities.”

The authors argue that a strategic expansion of the global protected-area estate is needed to preserve the irreplaceable wilderness areas that are most at risk, alongside national land-use legislation and the enforcement of business standards for stopping industrial footprints within intact ecosystems. The value of wilderness in the international biodiversity agenda can be no longer understated if nations are truly committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Eurasia Review

Tom Brady's challenges, but not expectations, are changing - WEEI

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:42:47 -0400

Tom Brady's challenges, but not expectations, are changing WEEI
Antonio Brown blasts Robert Kraft, Ben Roethlisberger in tweetstorm New York Post
AB says he's done with NFL; calls out Kraft, Ben ESPN
An NFL team will sign Antonio Brown, who says he's done Los Angeles Times
Antonio Brown's behavior is frustrating – Randy Moss | NFL Countdown ESPN
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Eurasia Review: Big Cities Breed Partners In Crime

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:42:35 -0400

Your intuition is correct. You are more likely to become a victim of a crime if you live in a big city.

Researchers have long known that bigger cities disproportionately generate more crime. Now a new study from Northwestern University and the Santa Fe Institute explains why: It’s easier for criminals to find collaborators.

“In a big city, you have the potential to meet more distinct people each day,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Abrams, senior author of the study. “You’re more likely to find an appropriate partner to start a business or invent something. But perhaps you’re also more likely to find the partner you need to commit a burglary.”

The study was published in the journal Physical Review E.

Abrams is an associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. Vicky Chuqiao Yang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and a former Ph.D. student in Abrams’ lab, is the paper’s first author.

As cities grow, crime grows even faster. And certain types of crime — such as robbery, car theft and murder — exponentially outpace the population.

“If you double the size of a city, you don’t just double the amount of crime,” Abrams said. “You actually more than double it.”

To learn why, Abrams and Yang collaborated with Northwestern sociology professor Andrew Papachristos, who studies social networks in urban neighborhoods. The researchers developed a new mathematical model that predicted the number of crimes as a function of social interactions.

To do this, they used data from the FBI, Chicago Police Department and the National Incident-Based Reporting System. The team was specifically interested in co-arrest records — or records in which multiple people were arrested for the same crime — across seven categories: robbery, motor vehicle theft, murder, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft and rape. Of these categories, only rape grew linearly, at roughly the same pace as a city’s population. The other crimes are more “social” in nature and often require a team effort.

Although this project focuses on crime data, the researchers stress that their model also applies to positive outcomes. For example, big cities also produce more patents, more small businesses and more income per resident.

“The world is becoming very quickly urbanized,” Abrams said. “There is a huge mass migration to cities from rural areas. It’s important to understand what good and bad effects come with that. In order to promote the good side and reduce crime, we have to understand why it occurs.”

Eurasia Review

Watch NIRVANA Songs Performed By Choir At KANYE WEST's Wyoming 'Sunday Service' - BLABBERMOUTH.NET

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:40:49 -0400

Eurasia Review: Decoding How Kids Get Into Hacking

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:38:05 -0400

s your kid obsessed with video games and hanging out with questionable friends? These are common traits for involvement in cybercrime, among other delinquencies. New research from Michigan State University identified characteristics and gender-specific behaviors in kids that could lead them to become juvenile hackers.

“We know much about the scope of hacking and its threat, but the problem is that we don’t know exactly when and how hacking behavior starts,” said Thomas Holt, lead author and MSU cybercrime expert in the School of Criminal Justice. “There is a general understanding that hacking starts in the early teens but until now, we weren’t clear on background factors, such as behavioral issues, the impact of social connections or personality traits. Our findings pointed us in the direction of thinking that there are gendered pathways to hacking.”

Holt assessed responses from 50,000 teens from around the world to determine predictors of hacking. The findings, published in Crime & Delinquency, are the first to dig into gendered differences from a global data set.

“We found that predictors of juvenile delinquency, like low self-control – so, not having the ability to hold back when opportunity presents itself – are big factors for computer hacking for both boys and girls,” Holt said. “But for girls, peer associations mattered more. If she has friends who shoplift or engage in petty forms of crime, she’s more likely to be influenced to hack as well. For boys, we found that time spent watching TV or playing computer games were associated with hacking.”

Holt explained that the stark differences between boys and girls were quite distinct, reinforcing the idea that girls get into hacking in ways that greatly differed from boys. He said that some of the findings play to how kids are raised within gender roles, such as letting boys play video games and giving girls different activities.

For boys and girls, simply having opportunities to hack were significant in starting such behavior.

This could include having their own bedroom, their own computer or the freedom of doing what they want on the internet without parental supervision.

While most schools have computer and internet access, Holt explained that there are still some geographic barriers for kids to enter cybercrime. The researchers found that kids who had mobile phone access early on were more likely to hack – especially if they lived in larger cities. Spending time with peers was more likely to influence delinquent behavior for those living in smaller cities. The researchers also found a connection between pirating movies and music and hacking.

In the 1980s and 1990s, juvenile hacking was mostly limited to gaming purposes, and even now most initial cybercrime isn’t serious, such as getting into Facebook or email accounts, Holt said.

“The initial attempts might not be serious, but without supervision and low self-control, it’s likely they got a taste for what they might be able to accomplish by taking their hacking abilities further,” Holt said. “And while low self-control plays a huge role with kids and teens, some of them mature as they age and can sit for hours, which gives them time to refine the skills of a sophisticated hacker.”

It’s important for parents to understand their kids’ tech-savviness and habits to help guide them on a path that uses their skills in a more positive way.

“Parents shouldn’t assume that having a kid with sophisticated technological competency is always totally fine,” Holt said. “Finding others in the field – like those you’d meet in a robotics club or attending something like the DefCon conference – is vital for kids to learn about using their skills in a positive way and for staving off bad behaviors,” Holt said. “Cybercrime can be a hidden problem, so talking is vital. The more you can understand what they’re doing, the easier you can flag something that might be off and curtail activity.”

Eurasia Review

Browns Couple gets married at tailgate before Sunday night's Browns game Camryn Justice 6:38 PM - News 5 Cleveland

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:38:00 -0400

Browns Couple gets married at tailgate before Sunday night's Browns game Camryn Justice 6:38 PM News 5 Cleveland
Rams vs. Browns: Live updates, game stats, highlights for 'Sunday Night Football' in Week 3 CBS Sports
Cleveland Browns: Terry’s Talkin’ and worrying about game with L.A. Rams cleveland.com
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www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security: Mark Zaid, whistleblower lawyer, hostile to Trump

Rowan Scarborough — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:37:53 -0400

Mark S. Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer in ...

www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security

"Howdy, Modi!" Trump rally today: President Trump pushes unity with India at Houston event featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi - CBS News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:34:00 -0400

"Howdy, Modi!" Trump rally today: President Trump pushes unity with India at Houston event featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi CBS News
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Why we won't be cheering Modi and Trump in Houston CNN
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3 dead and 4 hospitalized in Pittsburgh, police fear deadly batch of drugs - KVOA Tucson News

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:29:49 -0400

Aaron Carter Alleges Brother Nick Sexually Assaulted 91-Year-Old Woman, Asks FBI for Help - PopCulture.com

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:26:00 -0400

Aaron Carter Alleges Brother Nick Sexually Assaulted 91-Year-Old Woman, Asks FBI for Help PopCulture.com

After sharing a string of allegations outlining abuse and rape by his older brother and sister, Aaron Carter is continuing to share stunning claims in a number of ...

Why Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) Is An Attractive Investment To Consider - Simply Wall St

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:25:54 -0400

Why Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) Is An Attractive Investment To Consider Simply Wall St

I've been keeping an eye on Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) because I'm attracted to its fundamentals. Looking at the company as a whole, as a potential ...

"cia" - Google News: Why Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) Is An Attractive Investment To Consider - Simply Wall St

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:25:54 -0400

Why Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) Is An Attractive Investment To Consider Simply Wall St

I've been keeping an eye on Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) because I'm attracted to its fundamentals. Looking at the company as a whole, as a potential ...

"cia" - Google News

Pence Took an Eight-Car Motorcade to a Michigan Island Where Vehicles Are Banned - Slate

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:23:00 -0400

Carl Ruiz, celebrity chef, dies at 44 - CNN

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:21:00 -0400

Carl Ruiz, celebrity chef, dies at 44 CNN

Celebrity chef Carl Ruiz, the owner of La Cubana restaurant who made frequent appearances on The Food Network, has died, the New York restaurant said.

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NFL Week 3 grades: Vikings get an 'A-' for blowing out Raiders, Dolphins finally avoid an 'F' - CBS Sports

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:18:00 -0400

NFL Week 3 grades: Vikings get an 'A-' for blowing out Raiders, Dolphins finally avoid an 'F' CBS Sports
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Unruly passenger forces American Airlines flight to land - KTVZ

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:15:00 -0400

Pressure Mounts on WeWork CEO Adam Neumann as Board Weighs Coup - Bloomberg

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:11:00 -0400

Pressure Mounts on WeWork CEO Adam Neumann as Board Weighs Coup Bloomberg
Some WeWork Board Members Seek to Remove Adam Neumann as CEO The Wall Street Journal
Some WeWork board members reportedly looking to remove Adam Neumann as CEO CNN
SoftBank's Masa Son is in favor of ousting WeWork CEO Adam Neumann CNBC
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Eurasia Review: Identifying Artificial Intelligence ‘Blind Spots’

Eurasia Review — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:10:03 -0400

A novel model developed by MIT and Microsoft researchers identifies instances in which autonomous systems have “learned” from training examples that don’t match what’s actually happening in the real world. Engineers could use this model to improve the safety of artificial intelligence systems, such as driverless vehicles and autonomous robots.

The AI systems powering driverless cars, for example, are trained extensively in virtual simulations to prepare the vehicle for nearly every event on the road. But sometimes the car makes an unexpected error in the real world because an event occurs that should, but doesn’t, alter the car’s behavior.

Consider a driverless car that wasn’t trained, and more importantly doesn’t have the sensors necessary, to differentiate between distinctly different scenarios, such as large, white cars and ambulances with red, flashing lights on the road. If the car is cruising down the highway and an ambulance flicks on its sirens, the car may not know to slow down and pull over, because it does not perceive the ambulance as different from a big white car.

In a pair of papers — presented at last year’s Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems conference and the upcoming Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference — the researchers describe a model that uses human input to uncover these training “blind spots.”

As with traditional approaches, the researchers put an AI system through simulation training. But then, a human closely monitors the system’s actions as it acts in the real world, providing feedback when the system made, or was about to make, any mistakes. The researchers then combine the training data with the human feedback data, and use machine-learning techniques to produce a model that pinpoints situations where the system most likely needs more information about how to act correctly.

The researchers validated their method using video games, with a simulated human correcting the learned path of an on-screen character. But the next step is to incorporate the model with traditional training and testing approaches for autonomous cars and robots with human feedback.

“The model helps autonomous systems better know what they don’t know,” says first author Ramya Ramakrishnan, a graduate student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “Many times, when these systems are deployed, their trained simulations don’t match the real-world setting [and] they could make mistakes, such as getting into accidents. The idea is to use humans to bridge that gap between simulation and the real world, in a safe way, so we can reduce some of those errors.”

Co-authors on both papers are: Julie Shah, an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and head of the CSAIL’s Interactive Robotics Group; and Ece Kamar, Debadeepta Dey, and Eric Horvitz, all from Microsoft Research. Besmira Nushi is an additional co-author on the upcoming paper.

Taking feedback

Some traditional training methods do provide human feedback during real-world test runs, but only to update the system’s actions. These approaches don’t identify blind spots, which could be useful for safer execution in the real world.

The researchers’ approach first puts an AI system through simulation training, where it will produce a “policy” that essentially maps every situation to the best action it can take in the simulations. Then, the system will be deployed in the real-world, where humans provide error signals in regions where the system’s actions are unacceptable.

Humans can provide data in multiple ways, such as through “demonstrations” and “corrections.” In demonstrations, the human acts in the real world, while the system observes and compares the human’s actions to what it would have done in that situation. For driverless cars, for instance, a human would manually control the car while the system produces a signal if its planned behavior deviates from the human’s behavior. Matches and mismatches with the human’s actions provide noisy indications of where the system might be acting acceptably or unacceptably.

Alternatively, the human can provide corrections, with the human monitoring the system as it acts in the real world. A human could sit in the driver’s seat while the autonomous car drives itself along its planned route. If the car’s actions are correct, the human does nothing. If the car’s actions are incorrect, however, the human may take the wheel, which sends a signal that the system was not acting unacceptably in that specific situation.

Once the feedback data from the human is compiled, the system essentially has a list of situations and, for each situation, multiple labels saying its actions were acceptable or unacceptable. A single situation can receive many different signals, because the system perceives many situations as identical. For example, an autonomous car may have cruised alongside a large car many times without slowing down and pulling over. But, in only one instance, an ambulance, which appears exactly the same to the system, cruises by. The autonomous car doesn’t pull over and receives a feedback signal that the system took an unacceptable action.

“At that point, the system has been given multiple contradictory signals from a human: some with a large car beside it, and it was doing fine, and one where there was an ambulance in the same exact location, but that wasn’t fine. The system makes a little note that it did something wrong, but it doesn’t know why,” Ramakrishnan says. “Because the agent is getting all these contradictory signals, the next step is compiling the information to ask, ‘How likely am I to make a mistake in this situation where I received these mixed signals?'”

Intelligent aggregation

The end goal is to have these ambiguous situations labeled as blind spots. But that goes beyond simply tallying the acceptable and unacceptable actions for each situation. If the system performed correct actions nine times out of 10 in the ambulance situation, for instance, a simple majority vote would label that situation as safe.

“But because unacceptable actions are far rarer than acceptable actions, the system will eventually learn to predict all situations as safe, which can be extremely dangerous,” Ramakrishnan says.

To that end, the researchers used the Dawid-Skene algorithm, a machine-learning method used commonly for crowdsourcing to handle label noise. The algorithm takes as input a list of situations, each having a set of noisy “acceptable” and “unacceptable” labels. Then it aggregates all the data and uses some probability calculations to identify patterns in the labels of predicted blind spots and patterns for predicted safe situations. Using that information, it outputs a single aggregated “safe” or “blind spot” label for each situation along with a its confidence level in that label. Notably, the algorithm can learn in a situation where it may have, for instance, performed acceptably 90 percent of the time, the situation is still ambiguous enough to merit a “blind spot.”

In the end, the algorithm produces a type of “heat map,” where each situation from the system’s original training is assigned low-to-high probability of being a blind spot for the system.

“When the system is deployed into the real world, it can use this learned model to act more cautiously and intelligently. If the learned model predicts a state to be a blind spot with high probability, the system can query a human for the acceptable action, allowing for safer execution,” Ramakrishnan says.

Eurasia Review

Carl Ruiz Dies: Food Network Star And Celebrity Chef Was 44 - Deadline

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:09:00 -0400

Carl Ruiz Dies: Food Network Star And Celebrity Chef Was 44 Deadline

Food Network star and restaurateur Carl Ruiz died Saturday in his sleep of a suspected heart attack. He was 44 years old and his death was confirmed by his ...

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Eurasia Review: Media Ethics In Professional Journalism: Sensationalism In Media – Essay

Dr. Sabahudin Hadzialic — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:06:46 -0400

Sensationalism is unexpected news that has very strong influence on human’s sense, and later also on his/her perception. Sensationalism is characteristic for great changes of the orders (regimes, systems), and especially within the period when is not yet completely broken continuity with older order. This are most often times in which in society and state dominates non-controlled chaos, because nobody among authority on power does not have power to establish and order, security and stability, not even change or agreement about further strategy for development of the society and state.

Sensationalism destroys values and system of values and disorient and in wrong direction focus the public. Just to mention example of mass murderer Andreas Behring Breivik from Norway who got so much space in media and due to that, very soon had followers around the world. Does anybody know outside of Norway at least one name of his victim, among 77 murdered? No, but everybody knows his name!

The words “War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is power.” From George Orwell book “1984” have found its realization in XX and XXI century when everything, within the power of sensation is mixed and equalized.

Of course, most dangerous use of sensations comes from the field of politics. With “methods of defactualisation” (representatives of the press, lobbyists) power uses within propaganda activity in the public field – a long time ago underline philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt – describing and analyzing Nazi propaganda during the time of getting into the power in Germany. In that way lying is brought into the politics.

Does the lying and deception can be justified? If you ask your friends, probably you will get several different answers. Some of the answers will – NEVER, and others will say that it depends on circumstances. The third ones will try to avoid answer on the question in a way that will very carefully note that the answer depends on the definition of the word lie. What about the ethics?

John Milton, within his work titled Areopagitica, published in 1644, stated very persuasive argument in support of the freedom of thoughts when he described truth and lie as rival at the market of ideas. Truth, Milton wrote, always wins in fair battle. But, if the truth so sacred, why sincerity is the first thing that suffers first if it is within our own interest? Answer partially lies within the fact that inclination to untruth is equally a part of human nature and social norms as telling the truth. As a matter of fact, the art of deception has the same ancient history as dedication to the truth.

Media sensations as modern cannibalism and Boundaries between sensationalism and satire

The goal of sensationalism is to deviate people’s attention from the essential questions and problems of common life. Behind sensationalism someone’s personal interest and special interest most of the is realized as general interest. Sensationalism deepen the crises and delays bringing of correct decision and public is destroyed and public opinion is poisoning. Everything is mixed and, in that way, devastate and destroy. Public lies, slander, media lynch muddy common sense, brings disturbance and anarchy, spread fear and fidget, disorientate, creates feeling of insecurity and disability.

Media sensationalism, when are in questions personal lives, gets characteristics of “modern cannibalism”? It is infesting on the personality up to the “bone”. Journalists and media become to be piranhas on dry land. It is created unbearable status of verbal and written terrorism, insignificance and unimportance that makes everything stultify. The public is converted into the mass and crowd starving for someone else’s divested personal life, stumbling and the lowest passions. Media sensationalism is the rule of insignificance, banality, vulgarity and brutality in public space.

Suitable instrument for the spreading of sensation and the domination of sensationalism on public scene is the media. Sensationalism counts on dangerous roles which ethical journalists should avoid and to use them: obedience, non-critical acceptation of the rules that violates standards of profession and demagogy. Ethical journalist should maintain his legitimacy by using critical thinking to dismiss search for scandals. Journalist should “love the truth in the measure in which philosopher love wisdom and must hate scandal as philosopher detest of the public”.

Those who are producing sensationalism counts on immature public, and they would like to keep it as it is, and even, if it is possible, to get it lower on the level of immaturity.

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is notorious for causing controversy. Long before the January 2015 attack on the publication’s journalists, cartoonists were raising eyebrows with images that some people found to be distasteful at best and racist at worst.

Apologists for the magazine have always responded by invoking the political power of satire, as well as the press’s right to free speech.

In September 2015, Charlie Hebdo was embroiled in another controversy, this one centering on the publication’s depiction of Syrian refugees struggling—often unsuccessfully—to make it safely to Europe. The social media sphere has exploded in debate, with some commentators asserting that Charlie is mocking Syrian refugees like 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, and others declaring that the magazine is actually criticizing the European nations that have failed to help the Syrian migrants.

This debate raises ethical questions that are inevitably global in nature. As the media ethicist Stephen Ward argues, “Global power entails global responsibility.” This means that a globally recognized outlet like Charlie Hebdo doesn’t get to simply be a “French” magazine anymore, speaking only to a French audience. In fact, this publication can’t even claim to be strictly “European,” especially now that people around the world have held vigils, saying “We are all Charlie.”

It’s time for publications like Charlie Hebdo to stop pretending that they only have a national or regional audience. That means paying more attention to the diverse perspectives of an increasingly global public. It also means being more transparent about who and what these cartoons are actually for. If “we are all Charlie,” then Charlie might benefit from thinking about all of us.

It is very thin line between sensationalism and satire.

Given what the media have put the country through this past decade, it must come as a surprise to most Americans that the press has a code of ethics — Roger Mudd

Truth and sensationalism within professional journalism and Mediamorphosis, social media and sensationalism

Certain ethical scholars are uncompromising in defending of the truth as foundation value and they are following Kant’s point of view that lying by itself is wrong. Others are little bit flexible, but also insist on the heavy burden of evidence to justify a lie. Ethical scholar Sissela Bok sticks to, as she calls it, the principle of veracity, which does not reprobate every lie, but requests from moral agents to prove that their lies were necessary.

But, there are few reasons, why civilized society should accept devotion to the truth as foundation principle:

1. First, absence of integrity in communication between people, undermine individual autonomy. We, as rational beings depends on truthful and correct information on the basis of which we makes judgments about the whole series of actions, as the election of public officials, which products we should buy, which TV programs to watch, even whose kind of friends to choose. Please, let me mention, possible consequences of the fraud with fake movie critics which has been conducted by two directors of Sony pictures back in 2001. They invented movie critics “David Mening”, who wrote reviews of the movies

Hollow Man, Vertical limit, A Knight’s Tale i The Animal. When the fraud was discovered, directors were suspended for 30 days without salary, but that was not a big comfort for the readers of those reviews who thought that it was written by independent movie critics.

2. Second reason for the devotion to the truth is that by doing that shows respect of the personality as the goal, and as the gear with which can be manipulated. Deception usually puts personal interest above interest of others. Absence of the veracity within the process of communication puts receiver of untruthful information within inferior competitive position. Believing into the truth of the communication builds trust between individuals, as well as between individuals and institutions.

3. Finally, truth is of essential importance for democratic process. Democracy depends on informed citizens who approaches to the political and economic market with the knowledge that encourage analytical observation.

Transformation of the communication media most frequently comes because of the complex interlacing of the stated needs, competitive and political pressures and social and technological innovations. That is meadiamorphosis, defined by Roger Fidler, which helped all kind of varieties very much of journalism, including sensationalism, above all. Namely, growing up of all social networks, parallel with establishment of the wish of the manipulators, whatever their name was, to, through the already mentioned kind of sensational news, get access easier as possible to the public, helped very much development of media (il)literacy on a wider scale.

Question to think about: Is the sensationalism product of social chaos or is it makes social chaos as well?

Next: Media ethics in professional journalism: Social responsibility of professional journalists

Eurasia Review

Saquon Barkley in boot, using crutches on Giants sideline - NBCSports.com

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:05:00 -0400

Saquon Barkley in boot, using crutches on Giants sideline NBCSports.com

The Giants won't get running back Saquon Barkley back on the field on Sunday. Barkley left shortly before halftime with an ankle injury and the team ruled him ...

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The National Interest: India vs. Pakistan Could Be a Nuclear War Where Billions Die

Kyle Mizokami — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:00:00 -0400

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Hundreds of nuclear weapons could go flying.

Know This: It’s distinctly possible that any future war between India and Pakistan would involve limited action on the ground and full-scale fighting at sea and in the air. India has the upper hand in both, particularly at sea where it would have the ability to blockade Pakistani ports. Pakistan imports 83% of its gasoline consumption, and without sizable reserves the economy would feel the effects of war very quickly. An economic victory, not a purely military one might be the best way to decisively end a war without the use of nuclear weapons.

With that scenario in mind, let’s look at the five Indian weapons Pakistan would fear most in a war.

INS Vikramaditya Aircraft Carrier

Commissioned in November 2013, INS Vikramaditya is the newer and more modern of India’s two aircraft carriers. In the event of war, Vikramaditya would lead an offensive at sea designed to sweep the Pakistani Navy from the field. The nightmare scenario for Pakistan would be Vikramaditya parked off the coast of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest port, enforcing a naval blockade.

Originally built for the Soviet Navy as the anti-submarine aviation cruiser Baku, Vikramaditya was mothballed in 1996 after it became clear post-Cold War Russia could not afford to operate her. The ship was purchased by India in 2004, to be upgraded by Russian shipbuilders to a true aircraft carrier complete with angled flight deck. The updated design deleted all cruiser armament, including two 100mm deck guns, 192 SA-N-9 surface to air missiles and 12 SS-N-12 Sandbox anti-ship missiles.

Vikramaditya is 282 meters long and displaces 44,000 tons, making it less than half the displacement of American supercarriers. Nevertheless Vikramaditya’s powerful air wing is capable of executing air superiority, anti-surface, anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare. The carrier air wing is expected to consist of 24 MiG-29K or Tejas multi-role fighters and 10 anti-submarine warfare helicopters. India has ordered 45 MiG-29Ks, with the first squadron, 303 “Black Panthers” Squadron, stood up in May 2013.

INS Chakra Nuclear Attack Submarine

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The National Interest

Orlando Police Chief: Cop Suspended Over 2 Kids' Arrests - News 13

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 17:58:00 -0400

Orlando Police Chief: Cop Suspended Over 2 Kids' Arrests News 13
Officer Under Investigation After Arresting Children, 6 and 8, Chief Says The New York Times
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'Grave new chapter of lawlessness': Pelosi opens door to impeachment - Washington Examiner

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 17:57:00 -0400

'Grave new chapter of lawlessness': Pelosi opens door to impeachment Washington Examiner
Amid AOC pressure, Pelosi suggests impeachment back on the table to address 'grave new chapter of lawlessness' Fox News
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Trump Walks a Crooked Mile The New York Times
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U.S. National Security and Military News Review

Imagine If Obama Had Done This

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The National Interest: I Was Aboard A Sinking World War II Aircraft Carrier (It Was Hell)

How the USS Yorktown went to the bottom.

"Am I Invited?": Trump To PM On Watching First NBA Game In India - NDTV

"fbi" - Google News: FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com - KARE11.com

FBI aiding "swatting" investigations in Princeton | kare11.com - KARE11.com

Antonio Brown’s African proverb may have been thinly veiled warning to league - Fox News

Tech industry sets official standard for 8K TVs - Engadget

Police Dressed as Protesters: How Undercover Police in Hong Kong Severely Injured People - The New York Times

Michelle Williams Calls Out Pay Disparity In Emmys Speech - ET Canada

"us national security" - Google News: Chinese theft of trade secrets on the rise, the US Justice Department warns - CNBC

Security Boulevard: 3 Types of Network Attacks to Watch Out For

Security Boulevard: Building a Foundation for “Smart” Steel Factories with Fog Computing, the Cloud and Cybersecurity

Indian equities may extend rally, Asia stocks firm on Sino-US trade talks - Livemint

"global security" - Google News: Security Service for Telecom Industry Market Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast, 2017-2025 - Commerce Gazette

"global security" - Google News: Security Awareness Computer-Based Training Market Key Factors Analysis 2019-2025 - Analytics News

Top stories - Google News: 'El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie' Trailer: Jesse Pinkman is Back - /FILM

Eurasia Review: Abdullah Qardash: IS Successor To Al-Baghdadi? – Analysis

Who is Abdullah Qardash?

IS After Al-Baghdadi

Emmys 2019: 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,' 'Fleabag' win big, 'Game of Thrones' cast drives fans wild - Fox News

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports - Sputnik International

"International Security" - Google News: A bad week for army's top brass - Gisborne Herald

"global security" - Google News: Trading Watch on Shares of Highcom Global Security Inc (HCGS) - Manville Messenger

"us national security" - Google News: Trump's Asia expert Matt Pottinger to become deputy national security advisor - CNBC

Top stories - Google News: Patricia Arquette Delivered A Powerful Speech About Transgender Rights At The Emmys - BuzzFeed News

Stars and Stripes: In gun buyback talk, how do you round up so many weapons?

In gun buyback talk, how do you round up so many weapons?

Aramco's Repairs Could Take Months Longer Than Company Anticipates, Contractors Say - The Wall Street Journal

"cia" - Google News: CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End - The Chicago Maroon

CIA Recruitment on Campus Must End - The Chicago Maroon

The National Interest: Hitler's Only Aircraft Carrier Was a Total Failure

Germany laid down its first carrier in December 1936, and launched the Graf Zeppelin two years later. It would never enter service.

Worst dressed at the Emmys: Kendall Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Karamo Brown top the list - USA TODAY

Rams vs. Browns: Live updates, game stats, highlights for 'Sunday Night Football' in Week 3 - CBS Sports

Felicity Huffman Was On The Receiving End Of Some Ice Cold Shade At The Emmys - BuzzFeed News

Japan fails to track N. Korea missiles in recent string of launches - The Mainichi

A Motorcade on Mackinac Island? Pence’s Visit Breaks a Long Tradition - The New York Times

Romania, US, Ukraine to conduct Open Skies observation flight over Russia - newspaper - TASS

"us national security" - Google News: Trump Asia expert to become deputy national security adviser - Reuters

Food Network star Carl Ruiz dead at 44 - Page Six

Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine - Raw Story

"cia" - Google News: Former CIA operative explains why there’s ‘probably’ a recording of Trump’s call to Ukraine - Raw Story

Emmy Awards 2019: Jodie Comer, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sophie Turner lead the British stars - Daily Mail

Top stories - Google News: Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Look All Sorts of Sleek and Sexy at the Emmy Awards - msnNOW

Did Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner Get Laughed at While Presenting at 2019 Emmys? - Entertainment Tonight

"fbi" - Google News: Lopez graduates from FBI Academy - Sealy News

Lopez graduates from FBI Academy - Sealy News

Flight forced to land at DIA because of unruly passenger - The Denver Channel

Internal investigation launched after Orlando officer arrests 6-year-old, 8-year-old - WFLA

Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ Offense Left the Ravens Flustered - Sports Illustrated

Emmys deliver to Amazon comedies, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge wins twice - CNN

Top stories - Google News: Emmys deliver to Amazon comedies, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge wins twice - CNN

Emmys deliver to Amazon comedies, while 'Chernobyl' lights up limited series - CNN

Russian Military to Conduct Inspection of Region in Latvia Amid NATO Drills - Reports - UrduPoint News

Trump doubles down on call to investigate Biden after whistleblower complaint: 'That's the real story' | TheHill - The Hill

Kim Kardashian Wore a Skintight Black Gown to the 2019 Emmys - msnNOW