Official blog of writer and enterpreneur-CHAMAKHE MAURIENI.
His latest work is titled FACEBOOK IS DECEPTION(VOLUME 1 AND 2) and it is available on Smashwords online bookstore,on the link below:
Volume 1:http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/149463
Volume 2:http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/149490
**Chamakhe Maurieni is a Moroccan born writer, author, student and graduate of psychology.
A new tool is allowing criminals across the world to break
into cars without leaving a trace, and now that device has made its way
to Winnipeg.
The new device can be purchased online for about $5 and sends an
electromagnetic pulse through a car’s key area to unlock the vehicle.
Winnipegger Rick Henzel had no idea the technology existed, until his car was broken into early Sunday morning.
“We did find the glove box open, insurance papers stolen,” said Henzel.
At first, he thought his wife had left the doors unlocked, but a
neighbour told him he had phoned the police early that morning when he
heard noise outside.
Luckily, the whole thing was caught on tape. Henzel had installed
security cameras on his property about a year ago when his car was
broken into previously.
“They come running up into the screen. It’s a free for all,” he said.
“They’re in that car as well and away they go. Just like that.”
Thieves can be seen applying a device to a car and then opening the door as if it is unlocked.
“It makes you feel a bit vulnerable to be honest with you because you feel like a victim,” said Henzel.
Michael Legary is a security expert with Seccuris. He said thieves
are using the $5 devices to hack into vehicles’ computer systems.
"So just like we have to worry about our computers being hacked, our
cars can be hacked as well,” said Legary. “That's something we didn't
have to worry about a decade ago."
The device sends an electromagnetic pulse into the vehicle, tricking
it into unlocking the door, much like a keyless entry key fob.
He said according to the device’s manufacturer, at least 19 of the
devices have been shipped to Winnipeg in the past three months.
Legary said while you can’t prevent thieves from getting into your
vehicle, you can keep them from getting your belongings, and he
recommends not leaving anything, even your insurance papers, in your car
unattended.
The device can be thwarted if the car’s keyless entry system is disabled, but you’ll have to visit a mechanic to have that done.
Henzel has reported the theft to police but said police officers appeared baffled by the device.
Two Australian researchers have found that CSIRO-developed GMO wheat which was created to
silence particular genes within the crop can also silence certain rNA
and DNA sequences in the human body, causing fatality as early as age
five or six. The researchers are calling the GMO wheat a
‘safety’ issue, which requires more profundity before the genetically
modified crop is planted in more areas of Australia and offered in
products in grocery stores.
Professor Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury, NZ, and
Associate Professor Judy Carman, a biochemist at Flinders University,
released their expert scientific opinions on
the safety of CSIRO’s GM wheat at a press conference in Melbourne. The
Safe Food Foundation & Institute has a video of their conference, here.
While studies on the wheat have been released by CSIRO, the
scientists point out that there are some grave holes in the overall
assessment of the crop that have serious repercussions for people who
consume it.
According to the Heinemann and Carman, extended testing should be performed before the wheat is put on store shelves.
“We firmly believe that long term chronic toxicological
feeding studies are required in addition to the detailed requests . . .
for the DNA sequences used. . .The industry routinely does feeding
studies anyway, so it should not be too much more difficult to do long
term (lifetime) studies and include inhalation studies.”
“The technology is too new,” the scientists said in the press
conference, “What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat
intended to silence wheat genes can match human genes and through
ingestion can possibly silence human genes. We found over 770 pages of
potential matches between the genes in wheat and the human genome.” This
is the cause for concern.
The issue may end up in Australian courts if the company does not
respond to the scientist’s and publics concerns about the GM wheat.
The greatest intellectual crisis in politicized scientific
issues is when inventors fail to anticipate the negative side effects of
their creations. For example, the biochemists who manufactured early
pesticides were not entirely aware of the ecological impacts of their
work. The scientists who created the technology to produce electricity
from fossil fuels could not have predicted the rise of acid rain, global
warming, and the public health impact of pollutants. Genetically
modified foods are the most recent example of this frightening trend.
Last week there was a massive protest against Monsanto,
one of the chief developers of genetically modified crops. While
Monsanto is a probelmatic company, and there are serious dangers
associated with genetically modified crops, there are situations when
the technology is appropriate. The question should not be whether or not
to create genetically modified crops, but when it is appropriate to do
so.
A genetically modified crop is a food that contains human-inserted
genes. Scientists select genes with a specific purpose in mind, such as
increasing a crop's resistance to heat. The food industry often takes
genes that would not otherwise be found in a species and inserts them
into the organism’s genetic makeup. It is a common misconception that
such gene insertion does not occur in nature, when in fact viruses are
capable of inserting genes into their hosts. What this all means is that
organisms can be designed to fulfill a variety of purposes.
The biggest problem with genetically modified crops is the threat
they pose to genetic diversity. When managing a species it is important
to consider the genetic diversity of the population. The genetic
diversity of a species can be thought of as the species' tool box for
dealing with threats. Evolution works by selecting genes that increase
the ability for a species to survive and reproduce. If a disease wipes
out a chunk of a population, the survivors will pass on their
disease-resistant genes to their offspring. However, if all the members
of a species possess similar genes, their ability to survive threats
becomes greatly diminished.
The scary thing about genetically modified organisms is that they
have the potential to reduce the already limited amount of genetic
diversity in individual crops to a miscroscopic level. If a small number
of strains of a GMO (genetically modified organism) became dominant in
agriculture, it would seriously imperil our food supply — a single
disease could wipe out an entire food group. Humans cannot possibly
anticipate every threat, so it's important to limit the spread of
genetically modified foods. Given the importance of genetic diversity,
genetically modified crops should only be used on a limited basis to
address specific problem.
The question then becomes what modifications, if any, are worth
considering. Genes that would increase the yield of crops would save
lives in countries with starving populations, and crops that could grow
in polluted or poor soils should be considered as well.
The merits of GMO technology must be considered on a case-by-case
basis. On one hand, GMOs pose a serious threat to crops' genetic
diversity. On the other, GMOs could allow us to feed the world's hungry
and grow crops in inhospitable soil. We must recognize the threat of
GMOs while also embracing the solutions they offer.
Black rice – revered in ancient China but overlooked in the West –
could be one of the greatest "superfoods", scientists believe.
The cereal is low in sugar but packed with healthy fibre and plant
compounds that combat heart disease and cancer. It was known as
"forbidden rice" in ancient China because only nobles were allowed to
eat it. Today black rice is mainly used in Asia for food decoration,
noodles, sushi and desserts.
"Just a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health-promoting
anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries,
but with less sugar, and more fibre and vitamin E antioxidants," said Dr
Zhimin Xu the food scientist who led the research.
"If berries are used to boost health, why not black rice and black
rice bran? Especially, black rice bran would be a unique and economical
material to increase consumption of health-promoting antioxidants."
Bran is the hard outer coating of a cereal grain. When rice is
processed, millers remove the outer layers of the grains to produce
brown rice or more refined white rice.
Research suggests that plant antioxidants, which mop up harmful
molecules, can help protect arteries and prevent the DNA damage that
leads to cancer.
Food manufacturers could potentially use black rice bran or bran
extracts to make breakfast cereals, beverages, cakes, biscuits and other
foods healthier, said Dr Xu, from Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge, US.
The scientists presented their findings yesterday at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
I recently stumbled onto a book that opened my eyes in many ways to the
misinformation plaguing Americans regarding healthy eating, particularly
where it concerns brain health. The book, Grain Brain,
by Dr. David Perlmutter, is mind-blowing—no pun intended—and disruptive
to some long-standing beliefs about what our bodies require for optimal
health.
"The brain thrives on a fat-rich, low-carbohydrate diet,
which unfortunately is relatively uncommon in human populations today,"
he says. Carbohydrates typically thought of as healthy, even brown
rice, 100% whole grain bread, or quinoa—mainstays of many of the most
health-conscious kitchens—cause disorders like dementia, ADHD,
chronic headaches, and Alzheimer’s, over a lifetime of consumption. By
removing these carbohydrates from the diet—harbingers of inflammation,
the true source of problems that plague our brains and hearts—and
increasing the amount of fat and cholesterol we consume, we can not only
protect our most valuable organ, but also potentially, undo years of
damage. Cholesterol, for example, long vilified by the media and medical
community, actually promotes neurogenesis (the birth of new
brain cells) and communication between neurons, to the degree that
studies have shown that higher levels of serum cholesterol correlates to
more robust cognitive prowess.
The book is also not without serious consideration for
cardiovascular system, citing study after study to reaffirm that it’s
not fat and cholesterol, but carbohydrates and certain fats—and
not the fats that you would think—that are the true enemies of heart
and vascular health. Guidelines to eating for above-average health and
longevity are not without nuance, but Grain Brain lays out an
easy-to-understand roadmap packed with the latest science in a
colloquial writing style, never once doubting the ability of its
audience to keep up.
As the only doctor in the country who is both
a board-certified neurologist and Fellow of The American Board of
Nutrition, he deftly covers a topic rarely discussed: How what we eat
affects the health of our brain. And considering that deaths from Alzheimer's increased 68 percent between 2000 and 2010, the timing of Grain Brain couldn’t be better.
After reading it, I couldn't wait to sit down with him for a Q&A. (My questions are in bold.) You’ve
stated that carbs of any kind, from natural sugars in fruit to the
complex carbs in quinoa and a whole wheat bagel, are detrimental to the
brain, to the point that the most serious degenerative brain disorders,
including Alzheimer’s disease, are now being referred to as “Type 3
diabetes”. What’s the science behind this?
Carbohydrate
consumption leads to blood sugar elevation obviously in the short term,
but also, in the long term as well. Persistently challenging the
pancreas to secrete insulin to deal with dietary carbohydrate ultimately
leads to insulin resistance, a condition directly associated with
increased risk for dementia. What’s worse, insulin resistance is the
forerunner of type 2 diabetes, a condition associated with a doubling of
Alzheimer’s risk. In a recent report in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.,
Mayo Clinic researchers showed that individuals favoring carbohydrates
in their diets had a remarkable 89% increased risk for developing
dementia as contrasted to those whose diets contained the most fat.
Having the highest levels of fat consumption was actually found to be
associated with an incredible 44% reduction in risk for developing
dementia.
So-called “complex carbs” may actually represent a more
significant threat to health than simple sugar in that they may not only
raise blood sugar, but keep it elevated for a more prolonged period of
time. Foods can be evaluated by their glycemic index which measures not
only how high blood sugar will be elevated by the consumption of a
particular food, but also takes into account how long it will have this
effect. So the higher the glycemic index, the more damaging are the
effects of elevated blood sugar. Whole grain bread for example has a
dramatically higher glycemic index when compared to pure table sugar.
Ultimately,
continued challenges of our bodies with high glycemic index foods leads
to elevation of fasting blood sugars. This is of paramount importance
as recently published in New England Journal of Medicine.
In this report, researchers found that a fasting blood sugar even in
the range that most doctors would consider to be normal, levels far
below what would qualify for the diagnosis, are powerfully associated
with developing dementia.
In your book you challenge some
of the most commonly accepted dogmas regarding nutrition, namely that
both saturated fat and cholesterol are not only benign, but imperative
to brain health. If someone is suffering from brain dysfunction, would
you actually recommend that they consume more red meat, whole eggs,
coconut oil as treatment?
Two forms of fat that are
vitally important for brain health are cholesterol and saturated fat. In
the Mayo Clinic study mentioned above, it was found that those
individuals consuming the most saturated fat experienced a 36% reduction
in risk for developing dementia. And this comes on the heels of data
now indicating that saturated fat consumption has absolutely no
relevance in the area of cardiovascular risk as recently described by
Dr. Glen Lawrence in the journal, Advances in Nutrition.
Saturated
fat is a fundamental building block for brain cells. It’s certainly
interesting to consider that one of the richest sources of saturated fat
in nature is human breast milk.
Similarly, cholesterol is vital for a well functioning brain. Cholesterol functions as a brain protective antioxidant.
It is the raw material from which our bodies make vitamin D, a
fundamental player in preserving brain function. In addition,
cholesterol is the precursor for the sexhormones estrogen, progesterone and testosterone
– all of which contribute to healthy brain function. While the brain
constitutes about 2-3% of our total body weight, an impressive 25% of
the body’s cholesterol is found in the brain. So when the FDA last year
began requiring consumer warnings on certain cholesterol lowering medications related to memory decline and other cognitive issues, it wasn’t surprising. Indeed, it has now been shown
that in the elderly, those folks whose cholesterol levels are the
highest may have as much as a 70% risk reduction for dementia.
So
yes, I am absolutely an advocate for grass-fed beef, pasture raised
eggs, and coconut oil is on the top of my list. Getting these life
sustaining, brain nurturing fats back on the plate while substantially
reducing carbohydrates paves the way to brain preservation, enhancement
of function and reducing the risk for Alzheimer’s disease – a disease
for which there is no treatment whatsoever.
I’ve read many reports about statins, drugs
commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol, like Lipitor—netting
pharmaceutical companies $35 billion in sales in 2010—producing
dementia-like effects in patients, which seems like an awful side
effect. Why has the public not made a bigger deal of this?
In general, the public knowledge base and thus decision-making
behaviors are far more influenced by advertisement than with current
science. The widespread demonization of cholesterol has been incredibly
monetized as you well point out. My mission is to offer up the other
side of this debate to the public forum so caveat emptor can more
appropriately apply.
You reference many studies that challenge conventional wisdom
about heart health, most interestingly that people with high
cholesterol and low cholesterol tend to have just as many heart attacks
and die just as frequently. Should a diagnosis of “high cholesterol”
from ones internist be alarming? Are there any cases in which it should
be controlled by medicine or diet?
Over the past decade
we have witnessed a changing landscape in terms of refinement of the
cholesterol markers as they relate to cardiovascular risk. Whereas
cholesterol itself was first targeted, emphasis soon moved to LDL as it
was given the name “bad cholesterol,” despite the fact that LDL’s role
is to deliver life sustaining cholesterol to every one of our body’s
cells. I’ll say parenthetically that whatever marketing team
attached the “bad “ surname to LDL must have been well rewarded! We
then saw emphasis move to the importance of so-called “particle size” as
being an important marker of cardiovascular risk – and rightfully so,
size really does matter.
Now the focus of attention has gone back
to LDL in recognizing that it truly represents a potent risk factor when
it has become oxidized. Oxidation represents the damage that can occur
to proteins by the action of chemicals called free radicals. So,
measurement of oxidized LDL is now showing up on comprehensive heart
disease blood panels, and with good reason. The empowering science here
is that LDL gets oxidized when it is bound to sugar, a process called
glycation. And this process is directly related to fasting blood sugar
and therefore relates to a person’s choice to consume carbohydrates – or
not. In evaluating cholesterol in and of itself, I do not define any
upper limit in terms of cardiac liability.
A recent report correlated higher intake of omega 3 fish oils—which we know from Grain Brain
to be very healthy and protective to the brain—with a greater incidence
of acquiring prostate cancer. I was always under the assumption that
the more omega 3's you could consume, the better (while minimizing omega
6's, their pro-inflammatory cousin). What's your take on the study?
The
study had actually nothing to do with taking fish oils or any
supplement for that matter. And yet spinmeisters would have you believe
that this report dealt with people taking supplements compared to those
who did not. What the study showed was that those men whose one time
measurement of the omega-3 DHA was higher than others were found to have
a miniscule increased risk for developing prostate cancer. The
explanation that the public did not get was that because most men get
their DHA from fish consumption as opposed to supplementation, and that
the vast majority of fish consumed is farm raised, eating farm raised
fish poses a risk for developing prostate cancer. And that is certainly
no surprise.
My grandmother is 96 years old and has never
even heard of gluten. Because of the seemingly overnight hysteria
surrounding this grain protein, some have written it off as a fad. How
do you refute this?
In writing Grain Brain, I reviewed
more than 250 peer-reviewed references, many of which specifically
address this issue and are discussed in great detail. Gluten free isn’t
new or a fad. It’s the diet that humans have consumed for more than
99.9% of our existence on this planet. I would direct your readers to
recent publication
by my friend and colleague Dr. Alessio Fasano from Harvard. I welcome
the hysteria as it is directing attention to an absolutely fundamental
issue in our modern nutrition.
If someone is not suffering
from celiac disease, and generally feels okay after consuming
bread—even 100% whole grain bread—how do you convince them that wheat is
as detrimental as you claim in the book?
I must and
should defer to the most well respected peer-reviewed literature that
now indicates that gluten consumption leads to the amplification of a
specific protein called zonulin which increases permeability of both the
gut and blood brain barrier as described by Dr. Fasano in the above
reference. Gut permeability activates inflammation and inflammation is a
cornerstone of some of the most pernicious brain disorders including
Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. What
is so compelling in a very positive light is that this occurs in all
humans and may be the key to a vast number of human maladies including a
vast number of other inflammatory disorders as well as autoimmune
diseases, and even cancer.
In addition, the gluten issue aside,
whole grain bread has an incredibly high glycemic index and this poses
an equally powerful threat to brain health.
What’s your daily diet like? What's currently in your fridge?
I really love to eat and maintain the diet described in Grain Brain.
I generally start my day with a three egg omelet made with kale or
spinach and covered with olive oil. I drink a cup of coffee with
breakfast along with water. At lunch I might have steamed vegetables,
salmon, a green salad and an iced tea. And at dinner I again load up
with above ground vegetables by themselves or along with wild fish or
grass fed beef. I drink one or two glasses of wine each week, but
statistically I should drink more. That’s a work in progress.
As
to your second question, there’s not much in my fridge at home as we try
to keep food as fresh as possible and as of this writing, my wife and I
are traveling.
We asked the most
privacy-aware people we could find what it would take to go off the
radar. Hint: You're going to need to do more than throw away your
laptop.
Nico Sell, the cofounder of a secure communication app called Wickr,
has appeared on television twice. Both times, she wore sunglasses to
prevent viewers from getting a full picture of what she looks like.
Sell, also an organizer of the hacker conference Def Con, places
herself in the top 1% of the “super paranoid.” She doesn’t have a
Facebook account. She keeps the device that pays her tolls in a
transmission-proof envelope when it’s not in use. And she assumes that
every phone call she makes and every email she sends will be searchable
by the general public at some point in the future.
Many of her friends once considered her habits to be of the
tin-foil-hat-wearing variety. But with this summer's revelations of the NSA's broad surveillance program,
they’re starting to look a little more logical. “For the last couple of
months,” Sell says, “My friends that are not in the security industry
come up to me, and I hear this all the time, ‘You were right.’ ”
But even as more people become aware they are being tracked
throughout their daily lives, few understand to what extent. In a recent
Pew Internet study, 37% of respondents said they thought it was
possible to be completely anonymous online. From experts like Sell,
you'll get a different range of answers about whether it's possible to
live without any data trail: "100% no," she says.
The people who have actually attempted to live without being
tracked--most often due to a safety threat--will tell you that security
cameras are just about everywhere, RFID tags seem to be in everything,
and almost any movement results in becoming part of a database. “It’s
basically impossible for you and I to decide, as of tomorrow, I’m going
to remain off the radar and to survive for a month or 12 months,” says
Gunter Ollmann, the CTO of security firm IOActive, who in his former
work with law enforcement had several coworkers who dedicated themselves
to remaining anonymous for the safety of their families. "The amount of
prep work you have to do in order to stay off the radar involves years
of investment leading up to that."
Fast Company interviewed the most tracking-conscious people
we could find about their strategies for staying anonymous to different
degrees. Here are just a handful of daily, offline tasks that get more
complicated if you're avoiding surveillance.
1. Getting Places
A few years ago, a man who goes by the Internet handle “Puking
Monkey” noticed devices reading his toll pass in places where there
weren’t any tolls. He assumed that they were being used to track
drivers’ movements. “People would say, 'Well you don’t know that,
because it doesn’t tell you when it tracks you,'” he tells Fast Company. “I said, 'Okay, I’ll go prove it.' ”
He rigged his pass to make a mooing cow noise every time a device
read his toll payment tag. And sure enough, it went off in front of
Macy’s, near Time Square, and in several other places where there was no
tollbooth in sight.
It turns out the city tracks toll passes in order to obtain real-time traffic information,
a benign enough intention. But what worries people like Puking Monkey
about being tracked is rarely a database’s intended purpose. It's that
someone with access to the database will misuse it, like when NSA
employees have spied on love interests, A U.K. immigration officer once put his wife on a list of terrorist suspects
in order to prevent her from flying into the country. Or that it will
be used for a purpose other than one it was built for, like when social security numbers
were issued for retirement savings and then expanded to become
universal identifiers. Or, most likely, that it will be stolen, like the
many times a hacker group called Anonymous gains access to someone's
personal data and posts it online for public viewing. By one security company's count, in 2012 there were 2,644 reported data breeches involving 267 million records.
In order to stop his toll pass from being tracked, Puking Monkey
keeps it sealed in the foil bag it came in when he's not driving through
a toll. That only stops that data trail (minus toll points). Automatic license plate readers,
often mounted to a police car or street sign, are also logging data
about where cars appear. They typically take photos of every license
plate that passes them and often these photos remain stored in a database for years. Sometimes they are linked with other databases to help solve crimes.
Puking Monkey avoids license-plate readers by keeping his old,
non-reflective license plate, which is more difficult to read than
newer, reflective models. Others who share his concerns salt their
license plates, add bumper guards or otherwise obscure the writing--say
by driving with the hatch down or driving with a trailer hatch
attached—in order to avoid being tracked.
But that still doesn’t account for the tracking devices attached to
the car itself. To identify tires, which can come in handy if they’re
recalled, tire manufacturers insert an RFID tag with a unique code that
can be read from about 20 feet away by an RFID reader. "I have no way to
know if it’s actually being tracked, but there are unique numbers in
those tires that could be used that way," Puking Monkey says.
He uses a camera flash to zap his tires with enough energy to destroy the chips.
2. Buying things
Depending on your level of concern, there are several ways to produce
less data exhaust when making purchases. None of the privacy experts
who I spoke with sign up for loyalty cards, for instance. “It’s the link
between your home address, what you’re purchasing, age, your movements
around the country, when you’re shopping in different locations, that is
tied to purchases you’re making in-store,” Ollmann says. In a recently
publicized example, Target used data collected from loyalty cards to deduce when its customers were pregnant--in some cases, before they had shared the news with their families.
Tom Ritter, a principal security consultant at iSEC Partners, has
come up with a creative way to subvert loyalty tracking without giving
up discounts. When he sees someone has a card on their key chain, he
asks if he can take a photo of the bar code to use with his own
purchases. They get extra points, and he gets discounts without giving
up any of his privacy.
What you buy can paint a pretty good picture of what you’re doing,
and many people aren’t willing to leave that information in a credit
card company's database either. Adam Havey, an artist who makes anti-surveillance gear,
puts all of his purchases on a credit card registered under a fake
name. Then he uses the credit card in his actual name to pay the bill (Update: Harvey clarified that this is a technique he heard about from Julia Angwin, who is writing a book about surveillance). Ollmann buys prepaid gift cards with no attribution back to him to do his online shopping.
The most intense privacy seekers have a strict cash-only
policy--which can mean they need to get paid in cash. At Ollmann’s old
law enforcement job, one employee didn’t get paid, but vaguely “traded
his services for other services.”
“A barter system starts to appear if you want to live without being tracked,” Ollmann says.
3. Having Friends
Friends can be an impediment to a life off the radar. For one, they
probably think they’re doing you a favor when they invite you to a party
using Evite, add you to LinkedIn or Facebook, or keep your information
in a contact book that they sync with their computer.
But from your perspective, as someone trying to remain as untraceable
as possible, they are selling you out. “Basically what they’ve done is
uploaded all of my contact information and connected it to them,” Sell
says.
Same goes for photos, and their geolocation metadata, when they're
added to social networking sites. Sell, with her sunglasses, is not
alone in being concerned about putting her appearance online. At some
security events, where there are often speakers and attendees with
reasons to keep off the radar, organizers distribute name tags with
different color stickers. The stickers indicate whether each attendee is
okay with having his or her photo taken.
Sure, it seems paranoid today. But Facebook and Twitter
already run photos posted on their sites through a Microsoft-developed
system called PhotoDNA in order to flag those who match known child
pornography images. Most would not argue with the intention to find and
prosecute child pornographers, though it's not difficult for privacy
activists to imagine how the same technology could be expanded to other
crimes. "Every time you upload a photograph to Facebook or put one on
Twitter for that matter you are now ratting out anybody in that frame to
any police agency in the world that’s looking for them," digital
privacy advocate Eben Moglen told BetaBeat
last year during a rant against one of its reporters. "Some police
agencies in the world are evil. That’s a pretty serious thing you’ve
just done."
Ritter says he (not his company) personally thinks someone will build
a facial recognition algorithm to scan the Internet within the next 10
years. “I can just imagine them opening it up where you would submit a
Facebook photo of your friend, and it would show all the images that
match it,” he says. “We have the algorithms, we know how to crawl the
Internet. It’s just a matter of putting the two together and getting a
budget.”
4. Just About Everything Else
It’s almost impossible to think of all the data you create on a daily
basis. Even something as simple as using electricity is creating data
about your habits. It’s more than whether or not you turned the lights
on--it’s how many people are in your house and when you’re usually
around.
RFID tags aren’t just in tires, they’re in your clothing, your tap-to-pay credit cards, and your dry cleaning. Ollmann zaps his T-shirts in the microwave. Others carry an RFID-blocking wallet to avoid having their RFID-enabled cards read when they're not making a purchase.
Maybe you've thought about the cameras that stores use to track
customer movements. But cameras are also in your television, in your
computer, and on the front of your phone. Earlier this year, security
experts discovered a way to hack into Samsung Smart TVs
and surreptitiously turn on the built-in camera, allowing anyone who
exploited the security hole to watch you as you watched TV. Though the
vulnerability has since been fixed, it demonstrated that the security of
connected objects isn't guaranteed. Sell responded by covering all of
the cameras in her household electronics with masking tape.
What makes totally avoiding surveillance really difficult is that
even if you've thought of everything--to the point where you're covering
your tablet's front-facing camera with masking tape--you can always
think of more ways your data could be misused. Because you're constantly
trying to prevent something that hasn't necessarily happened yet, the
precautions you can take are just as endless.
Sometimes, as in the case of the NSA scandal, you find out that they were warranted. Most of the time, you never really know.
Ritter, for instance, recently met an insurance executive who always
pays for meals with cash because he believes some day that data will be
linked to his coverage. “I’m not saying this is a definite thing that
happens,” Ritter says. “but I don’t see any definite reason why it
couldn’t."
The term superfood is thrown
around loosely, but it always points to the same thing: an incredibly
healthful, natural food that can boost your health in numerous ways.
Green tea, berries, and turmeric are just a few that could be considered
superfoods, but rarely do we think of onions when we are talking about
these dietary golden-children. Still, the health benefits of onions are what make this savory delight a potent health-booster.
Most of the benefits of onions come from something called quercetin. Quercetin is a powerful flavonoid,
or type of antioxidant, that provides numerous benefits throughout the
body by protecting cells from free radical damage. Onions are one of the
top dietary sources of this powerful compound.
Onions are also
rich in sulfur, vitamin C, manganese, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, and
potassium. All of these together add up to a wealth of benefits. Over
the past several years, scientists have begun to unlock all of the
health secrets of these layered veggies. Some of the benefits they’ve found include:
1. Reduced Cancer Risk - Several studies have connected quercetin with reduced cancer risk. One study in particular found that onions combined with turmeric
create a synergistic effect that reduced both the size and number of
precancerous legions in the intestine, reducing colon cancer risk. Another study, this one from France, found that women who ate more garlic and onions had a lesser chance of developing breast cancer.
2. Improved Oral Health - Contrary
to common sense, which tells us onions make your breath stink so can’t
be all that great for your teeth, chewing raw onion is known to improve
the strength of teeth and kill problem-causing bacteria that can lead to
tooth decay.
3. Cardiovascular Benefits - There are many cardiovascular benefits to eating onions. Researchers with the University of Utah
found that quercetin is able to significantly reduce high blood
pressure in hypertensive adults. The sulfur in onions may also be able
to improve cholesterol levels and red blood cell health.
4. Anti-Inflammatory Powers - Quercetin, the star of onions, is known to have powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. According to Arthritis Today,
this is why it can aid in the treatment of arthritis. But
anti-inflammatory benefits may also help fight off inflammatory diseases
like diabetes and more.
Onions are also good for relieving
clogged sinuses, soothing an earache, relieving the pain of a bee sting,
and detoxifying the body. As an added bonus, they are very versatile in
the kitchen and can be cooked with just about any dish or eaten raw on a
salad.
Did you know that October is Non-GMO Month? The GMO Project
created this event to raise awareness about the issue, and to use it as
an opportunity to coordinate and speak up about “our right to know
what’s in our food and to choose non-GMO.” That is the purpose of the
organization’s web site: to spread the word and to create and help us
participate in events in our communities.
As I wrote last year at
this time, this is a great time to get involved and to take a stand and
support products, businesses, and organizations that take the Non- GMO
pledge.
Here are some specific ways that you can take action.
1. Make your own personal pledgeto support products that do not use GMO‘s,
buy organic products, choose only Non-GMO Verified foods, and boycott
companies that use GMOs in any of their products. You can make sure
products are Non-GMO Verified by using the Non-GMO Project’s product search page. It lists over 3000 products.
2. Use your “real“ voice
and share your opinion with your local, state and federal legislators,
and companies that support GMOs, like Monsanto. Let them know that you
want further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs and that
you want labeling of GMOs so that we as consumers can make informed
decisions. Support current campaigns in support of GMO labeling, like
the one in Washington State set for the November 5 ballot. And, find out
if there’s a ballot initiative in your local community or state, and
spread the word, volunteer with the campaign, or donate to the cause.
3. Get educated and educate your friends, family, and local community. The Institute for Responsible Technology offers all you need to know about GMO’s with simple explanations so that you can educate others.
4. Attend an organized Non-GMO event in your area or volunteer at an event. While there were global marches held on October 12, there are still plenty of other events throughout the month.
Furloughed FDA inspectors can't look out for bacteria, metals and other contaminants.
Among the ostensibly “non-essential” services on
hold during the government shutdown is the Food and Drug
Administration’s food inspection program.
Within the country, as the Huffington Post points
out, that means as many as 80 food production facilities each day may
be going uninspected (although an FDA spokesman clarified that an
unclear portion of those will be carried out by state agriculture and
public health departments).
Food coming from outside the U.S. is also going unmonitored. As Food Safety News first
reported, meat inspectors at the USDA are still on duty, but
food-safety workers at the FDA are not allowed to use their cellphones,
check their emails or, most important, inspect imported food. Normally,
according to Quartz, the FDA blocks imports from tens of thousands of facilities with records of violations.
Although the agency says it will continue to act on “ high-risk recalls,”
Caroline Smith DeWaal, the food safety director for the nonprofit
Center for Science in the Public Interest, doubts that will be enough.
“They’re underfunded in that area generally, but no imports are being
inspected for safety right now,” DeWaal told the Christian Science
Monitor. “People could certainly target the US for products that night
[sic] not be accepted elsewhere.”
Quartz calls
out shrimp as a particularly dangerous import, but estimates that 90
percent of the foreign seafood, half of the fruit and one-fifth of the
vegetables consumed by Americans is currently entering the country
unchecked. Below, some foods on “red alert” that, were the government
operating as intended, the furloughed inspectors would be watching out
for:
1. Lead in candy: The FDA has had imported candy on
red alert since 1994, when a contaminated treat entered the country via
Mexico. While lead in packaging hasn't occurred recently, they still
see cases of lead coming from unwashed chili peppers used as an
ingredient.
2. Unapproved drugs in seafood: A number of international aquaculture
operations on are alert for using unapproved drugs in that could make seafoodunsafe for consumers.
3. Mad cow disease risk in supplements: The USDA's prohibition on
imports of meat from countries with a history of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, doesn't apply to dietary supplements,
prompting the FDA to closely monitor shipments for the disease which,
as it notes, is "extremely resistant to activation by normal
disinfection or sterilization procedure."
4. Cocaine in tea: The FDA's been on alert ever since 1986, when the DEA cracked down on herbal tea made from "decocainized coca leaves" sent to Hawaii, Georgia, Chicago and various East Coast locations.
5. Melamine in milk: Milk products from China have been flagged since the 2008 infant formula scandal,
in which thousands of babies were sickened, and several died, after
consuming contaminated formula. The problem of melamine, according to
the FDA, is a recurring one -- inspection officials are also on the
lookout for anything containing milk as an ingredient, including yogurt,
frozen desserts, biscuits, cakes and cookies, taffy-like soft candy
products, chocolates and beverages.
6. Metals in fruit juice: Heavy lead and arsenic contamination has been found in fruit juice concentrates
from Argentina and China. A single 8 ounce serving of grape juice found
in a shipment from 2002 contained three times the amount of lead judged
to be tolerable for children.
7. Bacteria in cheese: A laundry list of contaminants, from salmonella to E. coli, have been found in imported cheese from around the world. The FDA also looks out for the use of nitrates in cheese and other dairy products.
8. Pathogens in produce: Because fresh produce is
likely to be consumed raw and follows complex distribution patterns,
disease outbreaks from contaminated imports is likely to be widespread
and difficult to contain. As such, fruits and vegetables from a number
of countries are on red alert.
All it takes is a few biological tricks for a virus to cause widespread infection.
Fall is flu season and this year, as usual, federal health officials are asking the public to get their annual flu vaccine shot.
But scientists say there are much more deadly bugs lurking out
there that could someday make the jump from local outbreak to a
worldwide super pandemic that could wipe out people across the globe.
All it takes is a few biological tricks for a microscopic virus to turn
into a raging killer like the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 to
100 million people, or the SARS virus that started in China in 2003 and
spread to 37 countries in just a few weeks. It eventually killed fewer
than 800 people.
This year, two contagions that are scaring epidemiologists the
most are another Asian virus called H7N9, and MERS, or Middle East
respiratory syndrome. Both appeared in 2012.
What does it take to make the jump? Medical researchers say nightmare
bugs are quick to evolve, resistant to treatment, have lethal power and
the ability to spread from person to person, usually through the air.
To fight these viruses, scientists are deploying new tools of
genetic screening to identify the evil-doers, as well as old-fashioned
public health measures to quickly isolate patients and stop an
epidemic’s spread."The two most critical things are virulence and
transmissibility," said Scott Dowell, director of global disease
detection and emergency response for the Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta.
Dowell was part of the CDC team in Bankok, Thailand, that
responded to early reports of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Even though
that epidemic eventually did not kill as many people as expected, he
said the outbreak scared medical experts because of its incredibly fast
spread.
"In the thick of it, it wasn't clear what direction things were
going to go," Dowell told Discovery News. "It was an impressive and
frightening time."
SARS -- severe acute respiratory syndrome -- is a member of the
corona-virus family of microbes (same as the common cold). It
originated in the farms of China's southern Guangdong Province where it
made the leap from farm animals to humans in November 2002. It did that
by reassembling its genetic material to take over host cells and
replicate.
By April 2003, it had spread throughout Asia and was killing
one out of every 10 infected patients. Dowell said the only things that
stopped its spread were international cooperation and the ability to
quarantine people who got infected.
By summer of 2003, the outbreak was contained after infecting more than 9,000 people.
Today, fears are rising about a new virus, H7N9, that started
in poultry in China and infected 130 people in April 2013, killing 44.
Luckily, there hasn't been any evidence of human-to-human spread, but
researchers at the National Institutes of Health have just begun the
first vaccine clinical trial for H7N9 at nine hospitals across the
United States.
The CDC plans to "build" the latest version of the bird flu virus to use it in its vaccine.
In Saudi Arabia, doctors are watching the spread of MERS, another
corona-virus that has been linked to four Middle Eastern nations but
also has spread to Europe. So far, nearly half of the 114 people who
contracted the virus have died.
Dowell says that researchers are slowly making progress in
developing drugs to treat some of these respiratory viruses, which are
normally immune to anti-biotics. That's due to advancements in treating
another virus, HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.
While the CDC and NIH are engaging in basic research and
epidemiology to understand these killer diseases, some experts say
there's a big gap when it comes to drug development.
"There isn't a lot of incentive on the part of industry to make
the major investment, $700 million to $1 billion for each drug," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infections Diseases.
"There's a big market for Lipitor, or for a
Viagra-like drug because the pharmaceutical companies know when they
will make the drug there will be hundreds of millions of people taking
it."
Fauci says he's been working to develop partnerships between
NIH and drugmakers to get ready for the next outbreak or drug-resistant
superbug.
MOSCOW, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russian-German naval exercises,
codenamed PASSEX, will be held on Monday in the Gulf of Finland, the
press service of Russia’s Western Military District said.
The exercises will involve Russia’s newest Baltic Fleet warship, the Project 20380 Boiky corvette and Germany’s Karlsruhe frigate.
«During the joint exercise in the Gulf of Finland the ships will test
communication and train joint maneuvers,” the press service said in a
statement.
The naval maneuvers will be the final part of the German frigate’s visit to St. Petersburg, which began on October 2.
The Russian government is asking for 'planet hacking' to be included in the climate science report, leaked documents show
Russia
is pushing for next week's landmark UN climate science report to
include support for controversial technologies to geoengineer the
planet's climate, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
As climate scientists prepare to gather for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) in Stockholm to present the most authoritative state of climate
science to date, it has emerged the Russian government is asking for
"planet hacking" to be included in the report. The IPCC has not included
geoengineering in its major assessments before.
The
documents seen by the Guardian show Russia is asking for a conclusion
of the report to say that a "possible solution of this [climate change]
problem can be found in using of [sic] geoengineering methods to
stabilise current climate." Russia also highlighted that its scientists
are developing geoengineering technologies.
Geoengineering aims to cool the Earth by methods including spraying
sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, or
fertilising the oceans with iron to create carbon-capturing algal
blooms.
Such ideas are increasingly being discussed by western
scientists and governments as a plan B for addressing climate change,
with the new astronomer royal, Professor Sir Martin Rees, calling last week for such methods to buy time to develop sources of clean energy. But the techniques have been criticised as a way for powerful, industrialised nations to dodge their commitments to reduce carbon emissions.
Some
modelling has shown geoengineering could be effective at reducing the
Earth's temperature, but manipulation of sensitive planetary systems in
one area of the world could also result in drastic unintended
consequences globally, such as radically disrupted rainfall.
Responding to efforts to discredit the climate science with a spoiler campaign in
advance of the report, the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra K Pachauri,
said he was confident the high standards of the science in the report
would make the case for climate action. He said: "There will be enough
information provided so that rational people across the globe will see
that action is needed on climate change."
The Russian scientist
Yuri Izrael, who has participated in IPCC geoengineering expert groups
and was an adviser to the former Russian president Vladimir Putin,
conducted an experiment in 2009 that sprayed particles from a helicopter
to assess how much sunlight was blocked by the aerosol plume. A planned test in Britain that would have used a balloon attached to a 1km hose to develop equipment for spraying was prevented after a public outcry.
Observers
have suggested that Russia's admission that it is developing
geoengineering may put it in violation of the UN moratorium on
geoengineering projects established at the Biodiversity Convention in
2010 and should be discussed on an emergency basis when the convention's
scientific subcommittee meets in Montreal in October.
Civil society organisations have previously raised concerns
that expert groups writing geoengineering sections of the IPCC report
were dominated by US, UK and Canadian geoengineering advocates who have
called for public funding of large-scale experiments or who have taken
out commercial patents on geoenginering technologies. One scientist who
served as a group co-chair, David Keith of Harvard University, runs a
private geoengineering company, has planned tests in New Mexico, and is publicising a new book called The Case for Climate Engineering.
Nearly
160 civil society, indigenous and environmental organisations signed a
letter in 2011 urging caution and calling on the IPCC not to legitimise
geoengineering.
Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director of the
technology watchdog ETC Group, said: "We have been warning that a few
geoengineering advocates have been trying to hijack the IPCC for their
agenda. We are now seeing a deliberate attempt to exploit the high
profile and credibility of this body in order to create more mainstream
support for extreme climate engineering. The public and policymakers
need to be on guard against being steamrollered into accepting dangerous
and immoral interventions with our planet, which are a false solution
to climate change. Geoengineering should be banned by the UN general
assembly."
Matthew Watson, a senior lecturer at the University of
Bristol's Earth sciences department and one of the team behind the
cancelled balloon project, said: "In general ought the IPCC to be
thinking about geoengineering? Yes. But do I want to see unilateralism
or regionalism affect the debate? Certainly not. The people who don't
like geoengineering will suggest the IPCC is a method for normalising
it."
He added: "The IPCC has to be very careful about how it
handles this [geoengineering] because it is clearly a very significant
output that people are very mindful of."
While the IPCC is
intended to be a scientific advisory panel, government delegates have
been reviewing the summary report and make final decisions about it in
Stockholm at the end of the month.
Sweden, Norway and Germany
expressed more scepticism about geoengineering and asked that the report
underline its potential dangers.
"The information on
geoengineering options is too optimistic as it does not appropriately
reflect the current lack of knowledge or the high risks associated with
such methods," noted the German government.
Geoengineering is
expected to play a much larger role in the next IPCC reports coming out
in 2014. Observers were surprised that it had turned up in this first
major report – meant to assess physical science rather than mitigation
strategies.
The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition
fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are
rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.
But the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to
produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is
enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel
forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The CIA’s mission, officials said, has been defined by the
White House’s desire to seek a political settlement, a scenario that
relies on an eventual stalemate among the warring factions rather than a
clear victor. As a result, officials said, limits on the agency’s
authorities enable it to provide enough support to help ensure that
politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough
for them to win.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the agency has sent
additional paramilitary teams to secret bases in Jordan in recent weeks
in a push to double the number of rebel fighters getting CIA instruction and weapons before being sent back to Syria.
The
agency has trained fewer than 1,000 rebel fighters this year, current
and former U.S. officials said. By contrast, U.S. intelligence analysts
estimate that more than 20,000 have been trained to fight for
government-backed militias by Assad’s ally Iran and the Hezbollah
militant network it sponsors.
The CIA effort was described as an
urgent bid to bolster moderate Syrian militias, which have been unable
to mount a serious challenge to Assad or match the growing strength of
rival rebel factions that have hard-line Islamist agendas and, in some
cases, ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
The
CIA is “ramping up and expanding its effort,” said a U.S. official
familiar with operations in Syria, because “it was clear that the
opposition was losing, and not only losing tactically but on a more
strategic level.”
The CIA declined to comment.
The latest
setback came last month, when 11 of the largest armed factions in Syria,
including some backed by the United States, announced the formation of an alliance
with a goal of creating an Islamic state. The alliance is led by Jabhat
al-Nusra, a group that has sworn allegiance to the al-Qaeda leadership
in Pakistan.
Operating under constraints
The descriptions of the CIA training program provide the most
detailed account to date of the limited dimensions and daunting
objectives of a CIA operation that President Obama secretly authorized
in a covert action finding he signed this year.
U.S. officials
said the classified program has been constrained by limits on CIA
resources, the reluctance of rebel fighters to leave Syria for U.S.
instruction and Jordan’s restrictions on the CIA’s paramilitary presence
there.
But the limited scope also reflects a deeper tension in
the Obama administration’s strategy on Syria, one that has sought to
advance U.S. interests but avoid being drawn more deeply into a conflict
that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 100,000 people
since it began in 2011.
The constraints have become a source of frustration within the CIA and drawn criticism from senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who as chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee meets regularly with senior officials from the
CIA and other agencies, said there is a “high degree of frustration in
the executive branch” with the Syria strategy.
“The situation in Syria is changing faster than the
administration can keep up,” Rogers said. He declined to discuss CIA
operations, which are classified, but said that U.S. support for
moderate opposition groups is “less than robust” and has been hobbled by
“inconsistent resource allocation with stated goals.”
CIA
veterans expressed skepticism that the training and weapons deliveries
will have any meaningful effect. In Jordan, operatives involved in
training and arming rebels lament that “we’re being asked to do
something with nothing,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official
said. The former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of
the sensitivity of agency operations overseas.
Some have also
questioned the wisdom of expanding the CIA’s mission at a time when many
think the agency has become too paramilitary in focus and should return
to its traditional intelligence-gathering role. ‘Basic infantry training’
The agency’s training effort is centered in Jordan, where the CIA
has long-standing connections to the domestic intelligence service and
access to bases guarded by the Jordanian military.
The program is
aimed at shoring up the fighting power of units aligned with the
Supreme Military Council, an umbrella organization led by a former
Syrian general that is the main recipient of U.S. support.
The
training is led by small teams of operatives from the CIA’s Special
Activities Division, a paramilitary branch that relies heavily on
contractors and former members of U.S. Special Operations forces.
Officials said the instruction is rudimentary and typically spans four
to six weeks.
“It’s basic infantry training,” the former U.S.
intelligence official said. “How to have some discipline hitting a
target, how to reload a magazine, how to clear a room. They’re not
marching. They’re learning basic infantry procedures.”
Officials said the main CIA training effort does not involve instruction on using high- powered
weapons such as rockets and antitank munitions, which are being
supplied by countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, although the
agency is involved in tracking those arms flows and vetting recipients.
Islamists ‘good at fighting’
The pace of the CIA program amounts to a trickle into the ranks
of opposition fighters, who total about 100,000. U.S. intelligence
officials said that as many as 20,000 of those are considered
“extremists” with militant Islamist agendas.
Those hard-line
factions have drained momentum and support from moderate rebel groups.
The most prominent Islamist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, include fighters who have extensive
experience from the war in Iraq, have ties to al-Qaeda and have carried
out high-profile strikes against Assad’s government.
Former deputy CIA director Michael J. Morell said in a recent CBS
interview that the most effective organizations on the battlefield in
Syria are the Islamist factions. “And because they’re so good at
fighting the Syrians, some of the moderate members of the opposition
joined forces with them,” he said.
Those defections have been compounded by mounting skepticism of
U.S. commitment and intentions, officials said. Rebels’ requests for
weapons were rebuffed until earlier this year, when Obama allowed the
CIA to begin providing arms. But even then, officials said, the
deliveries were delayed for months and restricted to light arms, which
are already abundant in the conflict.
Rebels were also angered by the U.S. decision not to launch
missile strikes against Assad after he was accused of using chemical
weapons to kill more than 1,000 people in August in an attack on the
outskirts of Damascus. After initially threatening strikes, the Obama
administration set those plans aside last month to pursue a potential
deal with Russia in which Assad would surrender control of his chemical
weapons stockpiles — and probably extend his hold on power.
Islamist
factions have taken advantage, luring fighters away with offers of
better pay, equipment and results. A spokesman for the ISIS said the
group had added 2,000 Syrian recruits and 1,500 foreign fighters over
the past two months.
“More and more Muslims in Syria and outside
are realizing that we are the only true force able and willing to defend
the Syrian people against this monstrous regime without any Western
agenda,” said the spokesman, Mohammed al-Libi.
Pessimism among refugees
Recruiting efforts by militias working with the CIA have sagged, officials said.
At
the largest refugee camp in Jordan, where more than 100,000 Syrians
take shelter, aid officials said dozens of military-age males leave
every day by bus to return to Syria, presumably to fight. But the flows
have diminished, and the mood among refugees has grown more pessimistic.
“Support
to the rebellion is reducing,” said an official who has worked at the
Zaatari camp. “We’re seeing fewer people leaving and less [recruiting]
activity.” Among those who depart, officials said they have seen no
evidence that any go elsewhere in Jordan for training before returning
to Syria.
The Obama administration has explored the idea of using
the U.S. military to expand the training program to what some officials
have described as “industrial strength.” But Defense Department
officials said there has been no decision to do so and cited significant
obstacles.
It is unclear whether Jordan would welcome such a
large U.S. military footprint, which would mean converting a covert
program into one officially acknowledged by the United States. There are
also legal impediments, including a measure known as the Leahy Law that
would require a determination that no recipients of U.S. military
assistance had committed human rights abuses.
For the CIA, the
constraints in Syria mark a significant departure from the wide latitude
the agency was accustomed to over the past decade in the conflict zones
of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in other countries patrolled by
armed drones, including Pakistan and Yemen.
Mindful of the
criticism and investigations that accompanied many of those operations,
senior CIA officials have raised the concern that the limits imposed in
Syria will do little to shield the agency from criticism if something
goes wrong.
“What happens when some of the people we trained
torture a prisoner?” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official
familiar with agency operations in the Middle East. Even if the CIA can
produce records to defend its training program, “we’re going to face
congressional hearings,” the former official said. “There is no win
here.”
Ernesto Londoño in Washington and Taylor Luck in Irbid and Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize for his diplomatic efforts to prevent a US punitive strike
against the Syrian regime over the Ghouta nerve gas attack in August.
A group of Russian activists said that the 60-year-old leader
was a much worthier candidate than the 2009 winner, President Barack
Obama.
"Barack Obama is the man who has initiated and approved the United
States' aggressive actions in Iraq and Afghanistan - now he is preparing
for an invasion into Syria. He bears this title nevertheless," Russian
MP Iosif Kobzon, who backed Putin's candidacy, told Interfax news
agency.
"Our president, who tries to stop the bloodshed and who tries to help
the conflict situation with political dialogue, is more worthy of this
high title."
He made no mention of Russia's war in Georgia or military campaign in Chechnya.
Under the Nobel rules only a few qualified individuals,
including academics and directors of peace research institutes, can
file a nomination to the adjudicating committee, based in Norway.
To meet the criteria, Putin's name was put forward by Beslan
Kobakhiya, the head of the Russian-based International Academy of
Spiritual Unity and Cooperation.
Kobakhiya said that the president deserved the award for the key role
he played in the peacekeeping processes in many regions inside the
Russian Federation.
Kobakhiya described the ex-KGB spy as the "person of the year,"
saying he had proved his commitment to global peace by averting a US-led
military strike in Syria, a close ally to Russia.
The Obama administration had planned to strike Bashar al-Assad's
regime after his troops allegedly used chemical weapons against their
own people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. More than 1,400 people died
in the chemical assault.
With Russia's diplomatic intervention, the attack was put on hold as
Assad agreed to give up his chemical stockpiles. Russia and China had
earlier blocked any UN effort to tackle violence in Syria imposing
sanctions on Assad. Kobakhiya said his official letter containing the request was received by the Committee on September 20.
Kobzon said that backers of the nomination had not consulted the
president before putting his name forward to the committee. He added
that Putin was not likely to comment on the news "because of his
humility," Russia Today reported.
The deadline for nominations for the 2014 prize is February. The
prize is awarded in December to "the person who shall have done the most
or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or
reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
congresses".
The last Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize was Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990.
