UN says 307 children killed during Syrian crackdown

Syrian families and their children carry pictures of Syrian boy Hamza al-Khatib, who anti-government activists say was tortured and killed by Syrian security forces. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)

Syrian authorities killed at least 307 children in their crackdown on opposition protesters, the UN human rights chief said Friday, urging world powers to refer these and other allegations of Syrian "crimes against humanity" to the International Criminal Court.
Syria's President Bashar Assad — trying to defeat an 8-month-old revolt challenging his autocratic rule — faces widespread international condemnation and sanctions over the bloody crackdown. The UN says more than 4,000 people have died.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said new reports of violence in Syria reinforce the need for the Security Council to submit the situation in the country to the Hague-based court.
"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The 47-nation rights council responded by passing a resolution backed by 37 African, European, Asian, Arab and American members chiding Syria for "gross and systematic violations of human rights."
4 countries opposed motion
Russia and China were among four countries to vote against the motion. The two permanent members of the Security Council have condemned the bloodshed, but are resisting further international pressure on Syria. Six countries abstained.
The resolution also established the post of a special human rights investigator to probe abuses in Syria. But the final draft removed direct references to the Security Council, and to "international accountability mechanisms" like the ICC.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, said the U.N. action would "not in any way be in the interest of the people of Syria and will not help it put an end to its crisis."
The council's third emergency meeting on Syria came amid mounting international pressure on the Assad regime. The U.N. says the nation is on the verge of civil war, and the Arab League, European Union, Turkey and the United States have all approved measures to sanction the Syrian economy, which relies on oil and tourism.

Pillay said her office had received reliable information that the death toll since the start of the eight-month uprising was now "much more" than 4,000.
"The Syrian authorities' continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war," she said.

An independent panel's report to the Human Rights Council this week said it found widespread evidence of "crimes against humanity" and use of excessive force against civilians.
The chairman of the international commission of inquiry, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a Brazilian professor, told the council Friday that the 307 children killed included 262 boys and 45 girls. He said November was the deadliest month so far — with 56 children killed.
© The Associated Press, 2011

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Fighting Crime With Digital DNA (Science Journal)

DNA evidence is widely accepted in courtrooms. And now, so is our "Digital DNA" -- those trace zeroes and ones we leave behind on computer systems, in our smartphones, beneath the hoods of our cars and more.

"Digital evidence is the new DNA," Ira Victor, a forensic analyst with Data Clone Labs and a member of The High Tech Crime Investigator's Association (HTCIA), told FoxNews.com.

Last week the Supreme Court took a first stab at addressing how such evidence can be used, hearing arguments from the Justice Department defending the use of GPS devices planted on suspects' vehicles. But that's just one aspect of a growing body of data: From digital photographs to cellphones to emails and Word documents, we all create a trail that law enforcement agencies are increasingly using to put crooks at the scene of their crime.

Heck, even the Doobie Brothers are doing it.
Jeffrey "Skunk" Baxter a founding member of Steely Dan (he played guitar on "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number") and a current member of The Doobie Brothers, is also a contractor for a number of U.S. government agencies and an advisor on terrorism, cyber-warfare and forensic analysis.
"I want your help," Baxter told attendees at Paraben's Forensic Innovations Conference (PFIC), a leading conference on digital investigations in Utah that wrapped up Nov. 9. It called for the increased use of digital forensics in courtrooms and cases.

But with increasing prevalence comes an increasing risk of abuse. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) told the Supreme Court last week that information from GPS devices could easily be abused.
"The proliferation of GPS tracking technology creates … detailed travel profiles of American citizens," the group wrote. "Law enforcement access to such information raises the specter of mass, pervasive surveillance."
Victor agrees. "Attorneys are very good at taking digital evidence out of context and then convincing a jury of the guilt of someone based on it," he said.

In 2002, "Jack" was sent to jail after police found pornographic images on his home computer. Security experts later told Wired News that the digital data had been mishandled: They suggested it could have been put on his computer remotely through what's called a "browser hijacker" -- a malicious bit of software that changes browser settings and can easily be built to store data on a PC.

As with DNA evidence, it can be hard to derive intent when examining a piece of digital evidence, explained Sgt. Kevin Stenger, computer crimes supervisor with the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orlando, Fl.
"Exactly how did a criminal use a smartphone in the commission of a robbery, if at all?" Stenger told Foxews.com. "Was he using it to look up an address, to take pictures of the potential robbery site? Was he using it to text message other members of his crew? Did he use it when the robbery was in progress?"
But when properly used, GPS data, cell phone records and even "metadata" from digital photos are admissible in a court of law. And digital DNA is everywhere -- frequent shopper cards, EZPass toll technology, smartphones and more.
So can all that gear "testify" against you? It comes down to a question of reasonable use, said Andrew Hildebrand, associate dean of DeVry University's College of Business and Management and an expert in computer forensics.

"What is public? Where is the expectation of privacy coming in?" Hildebrand told FoxNews.com.
The digital devices we carry create an unprecedented array of information about us, he noted, and rules are only now being created.
"We're in a new era of technology," he said. "Where are the limits for that, within the bounds of the Constitution?"
A growing number of classes around the country aim to probe these issues, training a new generation of detective. The University of Central Florida, for example, created an interdisciplinary program in 2008 to offer a master of science in digital forensics.
The program has over 100 students, coordinator Sheau-Dong Lang said, and teaches technical detection, forensic sciences and criminal justice, as well as current issues in cyberlaw. Twenty-seven students graduated in 2008; the school could admit as many as 60 in 2012.

Even the tools these cybersleuths will use are still under development -- and they're neither simple nor cheap. At the PFIC conference, experts explored new software and wrestled with the increasing amount of digital evidence that prosecutors and law enforcement sift through today.
"Like DNA, the devil's in the details," Victor said. If information isn't properly recorded and a chain of custody preserved, it's all too easy for data to become corrupted or even falsified.
That at least may change.

Software firm Katana Forensics announced at PFIC that it would soon release a free, "light" version of its Lantern software package, a $600 forensic tool that digs data out of iPhones and is sold only to law enforcement and government agencies. It should make digital forensics analysis more accessible.
As digital DNA becomes a more common tool in court, potential abuses may grow as well, at least until case law is firmly set in place.
"Yes, we should be worried, but not to the point of paralysis," Hildebrand told FoxNews.com.
"But this is a national dialog that needs to take place."

FOX NEWS
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Study connects religious service attendance to less depression

A new study published in the Journal of Religion and Health has connected the regular attendance of religious services with an increased level of optimism and a decreased risk of depression.

As a follow-up to a 2008 report from the Women’s Health Initiative that showed regular attendance of religious services increased life expectancy, this new study looked at 92,539 post-menopausal women over the age of 50. The religious affiliations of all the participants, as well as their social and economic statuses, were diverse.

Led by Eliezer Schnall from the Yeshiva University in Manhattan, the results showed that out of the participants that attended services regularly, 56 percent were more likely to be optimistic about their lives. It also showed that 27 percent of the participants were less likely to be depressed than those who did not attend services regularly.

Of those that were included in the research, 34 percent of the women said they had not attended services within the last month. Of those that attended, 21 percent were less than once a week, 30 percent were weekly and 14 percent attended activities more than once a week.

After the 2008 study showed that regular attendance of religious services by women reduced their risk of death by 20 percent, the researchers wanted to see what factors may contribute to that risk reduction and believe they could be related to psychological factors. The Women’s Health Initiative study began in 1991 and is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in an effort to track women’s health and habits.

Schnall cautions that these results and their study apply only to women, and older women at that. The benefit of regular religious service attendance by younger women or men has not been looked at in this study. Past research has shown that older women tend to take more of a social role in religious activities and may gain the most from it.

Abstract

Measures of religiosity are linked to health outcomes, possibly indicating mediating effects of associated psychological and social factors. We examined cross-sectional data from 92,539 postmenopausal participants of the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study who responded to questions on religious service attendance, psychological characteristics, and social support domains. 

We present odds ratios from multiple logistic regressions controlling for covariates. Women attending services weekly during the past month, compared with those not attending at all in the past month, were less likely to be depressed [OR = 0.78; CI = 0.74–0.83] or characterized by cynical hostility [OR = 0.94; CI = 0.90–0.98], and more likely to be optimistic [OR = 1.22; CI = 1.17–1.26]. 

They were also more likely to report overall positive social support [OR = 1.28; CI = 1.24–1.33], as well as social support of four subtypes (emotional/informational support, affection support, tangible support, and positive social interaction), and were less likely to report social strain [OR = 0.91; CI = 0.88–0.94]. However, those attending more or less than weekly were not less likely to be characterized by cynical hostility, nor were they less likely to report social strain, compared to those not attending during the past month.

© 2011 Medical Xpress
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Journal/Rituals of Cannibalism and Modern Warfare

It was a horrific and detestable scene, that is, what occurred just before European crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099. After capturing Ma'arra, Frankish chroniclers recorded how knights slaughtered every man, woman and child throughout the city, including the sick and elderly. But this ethnic cleansing was not enough to quench their thirst for unholy blood. As days turned into weeks, there was no plunder nor foodstuffs to be had. Therefore, and to satisfy their insatiable hunger, Frankish knights ripped up the bodies of the dead and then cut and sliced them into pieces to be cooked in boiling pots of water. Babies too were impaled and roasted, their flesh devoured.

Scattered around the world are caves filled with evidence that primitive humans split open the bones of their fellow humans to extract the marrow. Some sites reveal that they even extracted and presumably ate the brains of their victims. Modern humans have trained themselves to recoil from such thoughts, or cannibalism, and to see it as treason against others, a form of subhuman savagery. But cannibalism is not a peculiar act. Human bones snapped and sucked lie under the stones of every civilization. Compared to other mammals, humans have practiced cannibalism so regularly or on such a large scale that some anthropologists have suggested it did come "naturally" to ancient humanoids.

Uncovered remains also reveal that primitive humans thought about cannibalism, planning and scheming how to entrap and kill their victims. Elaborate rituals then surrounded their acts of cannibalism. While some cannibals ate people for nourishment or to survive a famine, in most cases cannibalism concerned a more reflective aim. Rituals show a moral, mental, aesthetic, and socially self-transformational aims. There is an intricate relationship between the eater and the eaten, a kind of appropriation of power. Whereas some societies ate humans to "capture" their victims spirit, other cultures practiced cannibalism to guarantee fertility or to revive one's necessary fluids by consuming certain body parts.

For the crusading knights at Ma'arra, cannibalism became not only a symbolic act of dominance over the defeated, but it was a kind of psychological warfare, a shock-and-awe campaign to spread fear. In other words, eating and devouring human flesh was used to strike holy terror into Muslims and pagans living in the region. It also showed how crusaders were willing to do anything, and risk everything, to accomplish what they believed to be a divine political and economic mission. Finding cannibalism to be so repugnant and abhorrent, and fearing the crusading knights might start eating them alive, Muslims and pagans surrendered in mass. Cruel necessity had achieved its goal.

Much like ancient cannibalism and its ritualistic performances, warfare devours human flesh. Ceremonial aggression and institutionalized violence extracts the very life of their victims. Through cannibalistic armies, leaders mirror an intricate relationship between the eater and the eaten. They appropriate the power of their sufferers, capture collective spirits of conquered nations, and believe they are revived and enhanced by consuming their victims fluids and bodily resources. This power-taking ritual was observed Ma'arra. It can also be seen in more modern times, specifically how crusading empires and predominately militant democratic states preemptively invade and dominate weaker nations.

Although seemingly insulated, presidents and prime ministers, with their advanced weapons technologies, devour and consume humans. Through cannibalistic campaigns and violent ceremonies, obedient soldiers too feel their powers and strengths enhanced. Like most ancient rituals surrounding cannibalism, great thought and planning is intricately linked to killing and then eating and consuming human flesh. And like primitive cannibalism and the war crime at Ma'arra, most modern wars and military campaigns are not about survival, but the need to dominate others and then extract their resources. Still, insatiable economic systems and deadly economic blockades devour young and old alike.

Jeffrey Dahmer, a notorious serial killer who ate his victims, left the army and worked in a chocolate factory. He was unable to distinguish between murdering men and the labor he performed. At work, Dahmer stirred liquid chocolate in large drums. At home, he dismembered his victims and dissolved their body parts by stirring them in a fifty-gallon liquid-filled drum. Dahmer treated his victims as he treated the commodity he produced at the factory.

 

Those who produce war and death consume humans. Their war-making factories turn humans into another commodity. Those who control violent institutions and advertise shock and awe through advanced weapons technologies devour human flesh.
Some nuclear and contemporary humans have produced the worst cases of mass cannibalism in the history of the world. To satisfy their carnivores urges and dominating impulses, modern and aggressive tribal groups have even eaten people alive through their preemptive wars, technologically superior weapons systems, and shock and awe campaigns. It appears ritualistic cannibalism is not such a peculiar act after all.

WN.com

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At home with Schlamowitz: Gaddafi's Jewish pen pal

An elderly Jewish man from Brooklyn has spent decades as a pen pal to world leaders as diverse and unlikely as JFK, Ayatollah Khomeini and the recently deceased Col Gaddafi.

Louis Schlamowitz has 60 albums packed with correspondence and signed pictures of world leaders

In Louis Schlamowitz's cramped Brooklyn flat, a signed photograph from President John F Kennedy sits above an action shot of Gen Manuel Noriega of Panama, signed with best wishes.
And there is Mr Schlamowitz, wearing sideburns, meeting President Richard Nixon at the White House, just as the Watergate scandal gained momentum.
The Queen is one who got away - she has not personally responded to the indefatigable 81-year-old autograph hunter from Brooklyn's Canarsie neighbourhood. At least not yet.
"The Queen only writes to people she's met," explains Mr Schlamowitz, a former florist and veteran of the Korean War.
He still treasures the three-decade-old photograph of the Queen and Prince Philip sent by Buckingham Palace.
Louis Schlamowitz Mr Schlamowitz says his correspondence with world leaders gave him a part in history
Mr Schlamowitz has 60 albums packed with correspondence and signed pictures of world leaders, movie stars and sporting heroes of yesteryear.
It all began when he was deployed to Korea with the US Army in 1953 and a friend suggested he use a spare Christmas card to write to President Harry Truman, on the off chance the American leader would write back.
When the response arrived from the White House, Mr Schlamowitz found his calling.
He began scanning the newspapers, writing down the names of public figures, noting the dates of their birthdays and anniversaries.
"Not everybody replies to me, but most people do," he says. "I write nice things to them, but it doesn't mean I'm sincere."
Mr Schlamowitz, an observant Jew, has corresponded avidly with Middle East leaders who do not recognise the state of Israel. He acknowledges that has earned him more than the occasional rebuke from rabbis.
More autographs Mr Schlamowitz has resisted most offers to buy his collection, which he intends for his family
"It doesn't mean I agree with them," he says. "I just want to add them to my collection."
Mr Schlamowitz corresponded frequently with the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, for instance congratulating him on the anniversary of his revolution. In response he received lengthy letters railing against US and Israeli policy.
"I stopped writing to him in 2000," Mr Schlamowitz says. "I got fed up with all the propaganda."
His practice of writing to leaders hostile to the US has earned Mr Schlamowitz visits from the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security over the years, he says.
Mr Gaddafi was a particular cause for concern: CIA agents wondered why Mr Schlamowitz was the pen pal of the leader of a government suspected of being behind the Lockerbie bombing.
"It's just a hobby," Mr Schlamowitz says he explained to the suspicious CIA officer.
"Hell of a hobby, Schlamowitz," came the reply, he says.
Despite these interrogations by officialdom, Mr Schlamowitz remains particularly proud of his Middle East albums. They feature Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, assassinated in 1981.
Gaddafi autographs Gaddafi sent him anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda
The Arab uprising has swept away leaders to whom Mr Schlamowitz wrote, like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who sent Christmas wishes from Cairo to Canarsie.
"I think Mubarak did the right thing, stepping down," Mr Schlamowitz reflects. "Gaddafi should have done the same. Politics is a brutal game."
This treasure trove of autographs and memorabilia has led dealers and collectors to make the pilgrimage to Canarsie over the years.
Mr Schlamowitz has sold a few items from his JFK and Marilyn Monroe collections, but most of his albums remain intact, ultimately intended as gifts for his family.
He says he plans to write "again" to US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and says he will pen a note to the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.
Mr Schlamowitz complains he cannot hold the pen as well as he once did, but he says the writing keeps him occupied.
"I feel good when they write back. I'm nothing special, just an ordinary guy, and now I'm part of history."

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How Has Magic Johnson Survived 20 Years with HIV?

On Nov. 7, 1991, Los Angeles Lakers point guard Earvin "Magic" Johnson shocked the world when he announced that he had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. After the press conference, the perception was that Johnson had just pronounced his own death sentence.

Yet, 20 years later, the now-52-year-old Johnson is going as strong as ever in his roles as a sports analyst, businessman and HIV activist. In 1991, when most of what people knew about HIV/AIDS was that it lead to death at a young age, this outcome might have seemed impossible.

So why is Johnson still alive?
The answer to Johnson's survival is far from "magic." According to reports, he takes the same kinds of drugs that are available to other HIV patients in the developed world, and increasingly in impoverished nations in Africa and Asia, where the disease still runs rampant. Many people have lived with HIV even longer than Johnson.

"There is nothing unique about Magic," said Spencer Lieb, senior epidemiologist and HIV/AIDS research coordinator for the Florida Consortium for HIV/AIDS Research. "There are still people alive and kicking and doing very well 20 and 30 years after infection."

Lieb said that in the state of Florida alone, hundreds of patients have hung on since becoming infected with HIV in the early 1980s, when the first confirmed AIDS cases turned up in the United States. But Johnson and these people are still in the minority: According to research and estimates by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.2 million Americans have HIV, and 20 percent of them are undiagnosed. Approximately 50,000 people become infected each year, and more than 18,000 die annually.

Stopping HIV in the back court
The key with Johnson and others has been preventing their incurable disease from progressing into full-blown AIDS.
Upon infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a person's immune system kills off nearly all of the virus and infected cells. But some small number remain, and over time, those HIV cells replicate, and replicate, and replicate. Then, usually 10 years after the initial infection, the viral load reaches a critical count, and the virus begins killing off the vital immune cells that protect us against infections.

At that critical count, a person is considered to have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS); with the body’s immunological defenses destroyed, it's usually only a matter of months before a range of opportunistic infections and cancers complete their lethal work.

Researchers have developed a number of powerful drugs to help people like Johnson avoid this fate. The key weapon has been a regimen of three or four antiretroviral drugs, collectively known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART.
According to a Newsweek story from last spring, one of Johnson's doctors who helped pioneer the treatment placed him on the then-experimental drug cocktail in 1994, about a year and a half before it came into widespread use in 1996.

"Magic got a jumpstart on experimental drugs before they were released to the general public," Lieb told Life's Little Mysteries, "but there were many people in clinical trials benefitting at the same time."

The meds that slam dunk HIV
HIV spreads by hijacking a subset of white blood cells called T cells, which are the body's first line of defense against foreign invaders, and using the cells' DNA to make copies of itself or replicate; in this process, these T cells get destroyed. The most common drugs in the HAART regimen target two of the enzymes that HIV uses to replicate itself.

The first enzyme, called reverse transcriptase, turns the virus' genetic instructions encoded in a single RNA strand into double-stranded DNA. (In scientific terms, this mode of replication classifies HIV as a retrovirus, hence "antiretroviral" drugs.)

The second enzyme, known as protease, creates new, functional HIV virus particles by cutting up the proteins cranked out by our hijacked cellular machinery.
Medication can disrupt these processes, and to that end, Johnson is currently taking reverse transcriptase inhibitor and protease inhibitor drugs, which are contained in the pharmaceuticals Trizivir and Kaletra, respectively, as reported by Newsweek.

Although these and other HIV-fighting drugs are "hideously expensive," Lieb noted, so are a substantial number of prescription drugs for much more everyday diseases.

Public and private medical insurance, as well as various assistance programs, make the medicines affordable and available to the vast majority of patients in the United States and other parts of the world. It is a "myth," said Lieb, that Johnson, who is wealthy, is buying himself special treatments.

Staying in the game
By taking the right regimen every day, most HIV patients can see the number of virus particles in a sample of their blood, or viral load, become undetectably low.
Not only does a low viral count stave off symptoms of HIV and AIDS, but it also slashes the odds of a randomly mutated copy of the virus emerging that can prove resistant to the therapy. Furthermore, a low viral load severely reduces the risk of transmitting the virus to others.

Yet even without modern drugs, in rare instances an HIV-positive person can manage on their own to keep AIDS at bay. These "long-term nonprogressors" or "elite controllers," estimated at as few as one in 500, have lived for decades with HIV, despite not being on antiretroviral therapy.

It is not known if Johnson is among this "scarce breed," as Lieb called them, but more than likely "without medications, he'd be progressing."

Researchers continue to study long-term nonprogressors for get insights on HIV resistance that could help the 33 million people battling the virus.
As Johnson has prominently shown, however, those with HIV can still live productive lives. Lieb has seen many such promising cases in person. "We have very buff-looking, healthy-looking HIV patients who have been infected for ages," Lieb said. "You can't tell the difference between them and you and me."

LiveScience.com

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Osama bin Laden: The truth behind the SEAL raid? Five bombshells.

Osama bin Laden was killed in a May raid by Navy SEALs, and Chuck Pfarrer, a former Navy SEAL, commanded the “same outfit” that carried out the strike on the Al Qaeda leader.

In his new book, “Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden,” Mr. Pfarrer says he wants to provide what he says are facts that dispel some of the myths that have surrounded the mission, and that have cast the SEALs, he fears, as "spray and pray" commandos intent on killing the terrorist behind the 9/11 attacks.
1. The strike was not a 'kill mission'
“There is the perception this was always a ‘kill mission.’ I’ve been around the community 30 years and never have I heard the words ‘kill mission,’ ” says Pfarrer. “The words ‘kill mission’ seem to constitute an unlawful order. We’re not stupid.”
In his book, Pfarrer describes the two types of missions SEALs are generally given: to “interdict” a high-value target or to “neutralize” him.
While the latter essentially amounts to a kill command, the “stated plan” of the bin Laden mission was to “interdict a high-value individual in a non-permissive environment,” he says.
Of the “thousands” of missions that have been conducted by SEALs “the vast majority are capture missions,” Pfarrer says. “If the guy surrenders, he gets captured.”
As an example of a "neutralize" mission, Pfarrer notes the order to kill Musab al-Zarqawi, bin Laden's operational commander in 2006. Mr. Zarqawi was killed after two SEALs hiding nearby used laser pointers to direct a guided bomb to the house where Zarqawi was staying.

2. Bin Laden was diving for a weapon when shot

Pfarrer describes it this way: “The lights and lasers swept into the room, illuminating the figures of a man and a woman. The woman was shouting [in Arabic] ... ’No, no, don’t do this.’ Osama was standing by the back wall. He dived across the king-size bed to get at the rifle he kept by the headboard. The room smelled like old clothing, like a guest bedroom in a grandmother’s house, a place sort of frozen in time.
“Pinned in the lights, Amal [one of bin Laden’s wives] lifted her hands to her eyes. She said, ‘It’s not him,’ in Arabic, and then something else that the operators could not hear.”
Then, Pfarrer writes, “Four suppressed shots were fired, two rounds and two rounds....The first round sailed past Osama’s face and thudded into the mattress. Osama shoved Amal as he clawed across the bed. A second bullet, aimed at Osama’s head, grazed Amal in the calf.” The next two bullets, he writes, ended bin Laden’s life.

Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Faisal Mahmood/Reuters/File)

3. Pakistan knew where bin Laden was
This is something US officials have intimated, but Pfarrer goes a step further, asserting that “officers from Pakistan’s ISI ... periodically checked in on [bin Laden].”
There is no way that bin Laden “could have existed in Pakistan without the ISI’s compliance – it’s impossible,” Pfarrer says, referring to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence directorate.
Before the strike on bin Laden’s compound, many in the SEAL community believed that bin Laden was dead, but that “the ISI was concealing his death because they needed to keep the money flowing.”
But the entire time, Pfarrer writes, “The Pakistani ISI knew exactly where he was, but did not inform the United States. They continued to let Osama pace back and forth in his compound. They must have wondered, as did his family, if he were going insane."
4. SEALs didn't use top-secret Ghost Hawks
Media reports and photos of the tail section of a US helicopter that crashed during the raid suggested that the SEALs used a stealth helicopter. But it wasn't the Pentagon's most advanced stealth chopper, Pfarrer says.
"The Ghost Hawk helicopters were among the most highly classified aircraft possessed by the US military,” according to Pfarrer.
They are only used by SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force operators. “They were Jedi rides, so secret they were only flown at night, and kept in locked, guarded hangars during the day. The Ghost Hawks were so low noise that the SEALs joked that they flew in ‘whisper mode.’ The newest version of the stealth helos, the GEN 3s, were even quieter than the previous editions called Stealth Hawks. The Ghost Hawks were invisible to radar and emitted zero electromagnetic radiation. They had shielded exhausts so they put off not much more heat than a Harley motorcycle. They were only used on the most important missions.”
At the last minute of the bin Laden operation, however, commanders made the decision to use the older version of the stealth helicopters, for fear that if the Pakistani air forces interdicted the Ghost Hawks, they would have been stuck in a difficult situation. The US could not fire on Pakistani aircraft, because Pakistan is an ally.
So the “pilots would have two choices: surrender and land, or be blown out of the sky. In either case, America’s most precious technological secrets would be exposed. Very reluctantly, the decision was made to use the older Stealth Hawk models, though they were smaller, had less range, and could carry fewer operators.”

5. Ayman Zawahiri betrayed bin Laden

Osama bin Laden (l.) sits with Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2001. (REUTERS/File)

It was, in some sense, jealousy and drive that caused current Al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri to betray bin Laden, with whom he was becoming increasingly estranged, Pfarrer argues.
“It’s been Zawahiri’s MO ever since he’s been a terrorist to push himself forward in every situation he’s ever been in," according to Pfarrer.
Mr. Zawahiri read fluently in English – and voraciously consumed anything written about 9/11, Pfarrer points out, adding that a number of 9/11 books talk about a courier that had been compromised in interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. Pfarrer argues that for this reason, Zawahiri must have known that the courier bin Laden was using had been compromised.
“So why would he continue to use a blown courier? For 10 years, their tradecraft was so perfect that we couldn’t penetrate it. Zawahiri set up bin Laden," Pfarrer says.
He concedes: "Not everyone in the community agrees with me regarding Zawahiri. But I’d say about 65 percent of the people agree with me.”
But is the book accurate?
Pfarrer says of his motivation in writing the book:  “I can’t say that the operators wanted the story corrected, but I can say that I wanted the story corrected. One of the things these guys give up is the privilege of publicly criticizing the management.”
Senior defense officials have pushed back on Pfarrer's account, disputing the timeline he raises and saying that no active-duty SEALs agreed to speak with him for the book. Pfarrer responds that his comrades indeed shared their experiences with him.
“I’m part of the community and have been for a long time. I didn’t have to gain anybody’s trust. They’ve known me. In my previous life I was commander of the same outfit that did this thing. It wasn’t a problem for me to find these guys, because they’re all my friends.”
The book, to be published Tuesday by St. Martin’s Press, “definitely involves some dramatic invention,” Pfarrer concedes. He says, for example, that he recreated conversations that took place in the Joint Special Operations Command’s (JSOC) conference room, which he describes as “three stories underground, and sit[ting] behind a foot-thick, sound-proof steel door with both an electronic card reader and an old-fashioned combination lock, like a bank safe in a spaghetti western.”
Pfarrer is sanguine on the response to the book. “I don’t think the reaction to my book will be as bad as when they found out that Disney was trying to copyright the term ‘Seal Team 6.’ 

Story by Christian Science Monitor

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Carlos the Jackal: Who is the man behind the nickname?

The terrorist Carlos the Jackal went on trial today for his role in four bombings in the 1980s that targeted trains and a newspaper office, killing 11 people. 

The native-born Venezuelan was once the most sought-after fugitive in Europe, a mysterious figure who killed two French secret police and an informant before being apprehended in Sudan in 1994.

The Jackal’s real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. He first gained headlines and notoriety for an attack on an OPEC meeting in 1975 on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in which he took some 60 hostages, including 11 oil ministers. His current trial follows the discovery of evidence against him in communist-era files from Hungary, Germany, and Romania. He is suspected in a dozen other cases for terrorism spanning three decades.
Today in a Paris court, Ramirez said he was a “professional revolutionary,” according to the Associated Press. He claims involvement in some 100 terrorist attacks. What is the Jackal's story?
How he got his nickname
Ramirez was first codenamed “Johnny” but is said to have been dubbed “Carlos” on a trip to Jordan. The name “Carlos” showed up on a false passport discovered by the French police.
The nickname "Carlos the Jackal" was coined after the Guardian reported that Fredrick Forsythe’s novel “The Day of the Jackal” was found among his alleged possessions in a London apartment occupied by a Basque separatist named Maria Angela Otaola Baranca. Ms. Baranca's boyfriend found a bag of weapons in the flat and contacted the Guardian. Two reporters found a copy of the Forsyth novel about a hit-man hired to assassinate General Charles de Gaulle, and the nickname was born, though the Guardian later reported the book was simply found on a shelf in the apartment.
Jackal film biopic
While “The Day of the Jackal” is a famed Hollywood film based on the Forsyth novel, Mr. Ramirez’s exploits have also been captured on the silver screen. A French television series by director Olivier Assayas has been released as a 165-minute biopic named “Carlos” that won a Golden Globe award. In it, the Carlos figure plays out as a kind of alter-ego of James Bond.
The director was a student in the Paris Left Bank at the time Ramirez shot two police and an informer and disappeared. The director later said in an interview, “Nobody seemed to be able to catch him or even locate him. Things like that fire the imagination. It's all about the mystery. Of course, once you start to find out the truth – after the end of the cold war – you realize how disconnected the myth is from the reality."

His latest wife
The Jackal is married to his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. Ms. Peyre has defended mostly radical leftists, including Khmer Rouge leaders, but she has also represented people accused of anti-Semitism and Zacarias Moussaoui, whom the US government accused of being a 9/11 plotter.
Sanchez is a converted Muslim and Ms. Coutant-Peyre was brought up Catholic. They met in 1982 when Coutant-Peyre was working for Jacques Verges, a lawyer who defended Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. At the time, Mr. Verges was defending the Jackal’s first wife, Magdalena Kopp, who was sentenced for a planned bombing in Paris. Coutant-Peyre and Mr. Verges initially defended the Jackal, but the Jackal sacked Verges in 1997 and made Peyre his chief lawyer. In 2001 the two were married in a French prison. Peyre is his third wife.
Other crimes
In addition to the attack on OPEC in 1975 that left three dead, the killing of the French police, and the alleged bombings he is on trial for, the Jackal is suspected of crimes in a half dozen European nations. These include:

• A possible lead role in the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic games
• Bomb attacks in Paris, including a 1982 explosion that killed one and injured 63
• A grenade attack on an Israeli-owned bank in London
• Wounding the president of the department store Marks and Spencer in London,   Edward Sieff

Source: Christian Science Monitor

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Anti-Gravity yoga takes off in Australia

Yogis are hanging from ceilings in the latest twist on the time-honored exercise
yoga Suspended in midair, but are they defying gravity

There's yoga inheated rooms, naked yoga, dog yoga and now, in the same vein as Cirque du Soleil, there's Anti-Gravity yoga.
The latest yoga craze to hit Australian shores sees students contorting and inverting while suspended from the ceiling in a type of fabric hammock.
The new style was created by former gymnast and Broadway dancer Christopher Harrison; Flight Skool owner Iain Wisdom launched Australia’s first airborne yoga studio in Brisbane, with a second due to open in Sydney’s inner city suburb Redfern this month.
Already, the gravity defying classes are attracting a steady stream of yoga teachers and students bored with traditional yoga methods, as well as curious novices. During the 90-minute workout, even complete beginners will use the trapeze like hammocks to bend, twist and invert their bodies.
"Some people find it really daunting -- the prospect of being suspended that way," said Wisdom. "But when they realise they can do it, it's quite empowering for people."
As to what benefits the practice brings, Wisdom said it’s the same as traditional yoga, but allows students to reach spinal decompressions and muscular challenges they wouldn’t otherwise achieve on the mat.
“Essentially it's a suspension technique,” he explained. “It hails from the aerial arts and it's a fusion of aerial art, calisthenics, Pilates and gymnastics, all within the constructs of yoga. We look to decompress the spine through inversions, using the fabric to create very fluid movements in a very supportive way.”
Made from tough, tightly woven fabric, the hammocks are bolted to the ceiling, but there's no need for heavier yogis to worry. The fabric has been rigorously tested and can withstand the weight of a 400-kilo person.
However, the swinging sensation and upside-down moves can have a less pleasant side effect.
“About one in 20 people gets an experience akin to motion sickness,” said Wisdom. “We work with something called a drifting point -- like when you're on a boat and you feel a bit nauseated, you focus on something stationary, like the horizon.”
This means no Anti-Gravity yoga after a night out guzzling cocktails, and a perhaps a rethink if your legs wobble at the thought of heights.
“Very, very occasionally we get people who suffer from extreme form of vertigo so this technique won't be good for them,” added Wisdom. “All the same rules apply. You shouldn’t have anything to eat a couple of hours before, that's preferable. Light snacking is OK, but not a full meal.”
House of Yoga (Opening in September) www.houseofyoga.com.au 

CNNGo.com

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Assets Increase Incidence of Marriage

A new study published in the American Journal of Sociology indicates that the incidence of marriage drops when people have no personal wealth such as a car or financial assets.
The study shows that in the past few decades Americans are getting married when they are older and may forego marriage altogether. Statistics in the study indicate that between 1970 and 2000 the median age of first marriage rose by four years and the percentage of unmarrieds increased from 5 percent to 10 percent.
Daniel Schneider of Princeton University, the study author, said “What is perhaps most striking is the increasing stratification in marriage by race and education. From 1980 to 2000, the percentage of white women who had been married by ages 25 to 29 had dropped by 13 percentage points to 68 percent, but the drop was far larger for blacks, dropping 25 points to just 38 percent.”
Schneider thinks that this gap may be the difference in income and employment status. Studies show that having a good job and income are important in determining who becomes married. Therefore the gaps between blacks and whites may be because blacks typically have less education than whites decreasing their chances for gainful employment, thus they may hold off longer getting married increasing the gaps in marriage rates.
Schneider says, “In all, I find evidence to support the argument that wealth is an important prerequisite of marriage, especially for men. What people own, not just what they earn or know, shapes entrance into marriage and so may perpetuate disadvantage across generations.”
Schneider believes the inequality in marriage rates makes a strong argument for social programs designed to help people build assets. He says, “Contrary to concerns that such programs are unlikely to make a meaningful difference in the lives of the poor because these individuals are unlikely to accumulate significant savings, I argue that even small amounts of wealth may help disadvantaged men and women meet the economic standard of marriage.”

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Selling Your Body To Science

Have you ever wondered who discovered Viagra and how many years of research it took for it to come out on the market? Have you ever thought about the number of voluntary patients who sell their bodies to clinical trials in the name of science? Well, the number is staggering, mainly because of the large paycheck that comes with the job.
how does it work?
Although drugs go through various testing procedures, there are generally four stages involved in bringing a new drug from the drawing board to the general public.
Research and development
Hundreds of researchers in different fields of biological and chemical studies work together to identify existing or potential diseases, and formulate thousands of variations on the chemical structure of a drug in order to find the perfect one for each disease.
Preclinical trials
Pharmaceutical companies investigate the safety of about 0.002% of the potential drug variations in a controlled laboratory environment -- that is, on animals. Usually, the animals are "destroyed" after the completion of each trial. The type of animals include -- but are not restricted to -- mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, and chimps.
Phase I - III clinical trials
The next step is a study designed to assess the benefits and side effects of certain drug compounds on approximately 30 to 100 human subjects. It is the first evaluation of a new drug in humans.
In addition to assessing its safety and tolerance, the researchers gain information about its side effects. As they do so, they also select an optimum dose range for the new drug. Finally, comparative testing is performed with conventional marketed therapies if any exist.
Phase IV - Post-marketing evaluation
This stage is designed to identify rare or infrequent side effects once the drug has been approved by the FDA for use by the general public. Researchers also evaluate the pharmacoeconomics and quality of life attributed to the new drug.
the good and the bad
As a university student, I used to hear a lot of chatter about easy ways to make a lot of cash quickly.
A friend of mine told me about a Contract Research Organization (which will remain anonymous) that was recruiting healthy, non-smoking males between the ages of 18 and 45 for a two-weekend stay at their clinical site. And the best part of the deal was that they paid $2,000. Who could say no? Well, I did.
Shortly after, another buddy of mine told me how badly he was treated. They literally made him feel like a guinea pig. His meals, sleep and playtime were strictly controlled, and he had no privacy whatsoever. However, after I went into the field of clinical research myself, I realized the importance and benefits of enrolling in these trials, and I also found out that my buddy was exaggerating.
benefits
There are many benefits to participating in clinical trials:
• They allow affected patients to be exposed to new and innovative therapies that wouldn't normally be available to them.
• They help ensure the safety and effectiveness of new medicines, devices and medical therapies.
• You can make a lot of money; a two- to three-day clinical trial will generally pay between $1,000 and $2,000.
side effects
Although there are clearly more pros than cons in this matter, the major downside of participating in these trials is the potential serious damage to your health.
For example, I remember a study in which 70 cancer patients were enrolled in a Phase I trial for a new drug that was used in conjunction with lasers to destroy cancerous cells.
The drug was supposed to sensitize skin cells in order to help the laser to do its job. However, an unfortunate event occurred: The effect of the drug never wore off, and the patients still experience first- and second-degree burns on their skin when exposed to regular daylight.
your life, your choice
A word of caution for those interested in participating in a clinical trial: Read the fine print of the Informed Consent Form.
Nothing is hidden from the patient. This form basically explains what they will do to you during the trial and what the possible side effects of the drug are. Of course, there is always a risk involved, but you should generally be safe, as pharmaceutical companies follow a strict ethical code of conduct when running these trials.
A brand new drug therapy holds more risk than one that has already been tested and is out on the market  -- yes, they still perform trials on already marketed drugs. So choose carefully and wisely.
I highly recommend that people who suffer from a yet non-curable disease try new therapies. Not only do you have nothing to lose, but you will also be helping to get the drug onto the market where others might also benefit from it.

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Journal/Water is a right and a commodity

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 (IPS) - As the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the first anniversary of its landmark resolution pronouncing water and sanitation to be a basic human right, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon triggered a political controversy last week when he implicitly declared that even human rights have a market price.
"Let us be clear," he asserted, "a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free."
Rather, he said, it means that water and sanitation services should be affordable and available for all, and that member states must do everything in their power to make this happen.
But what if member states transfer their obligations to the private sector, known to extract a heavy price - even from those who cannot afford to pay in the world's poorer nations?
Darcey O'Callaghan, international policy director at the Washington- based Food and Water Watch, told IPS the important distinction is that while water delivery has a cost, water itself cannot be assigned - as many argue - an appropriate market price.
"Advocating for the human right to water is defined as water for basic health and safety needs," she said. "It does not mean free water for swimming pools and golf courses."
She pointed out that when poor slum dwellers pay five times what the wealthy pay for water, it is a clear example of discrimination and thus a violation of the human right to water that is now enshrined in a U.N. General Assembly resolution, adopted in July 2010.
"States are now duty bound to respect, protect and fulfill the human right to water and sanitation," she declared.
According to the United Nations, nearly 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water, and more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.
In his statement last week, the secretary-general admitted it is not acceptable that poor slum-dwellers pay five or even 10 times as much for their water as wealthy residents of the same cities.
"And it is not acceptable that more than one billion people in rural communities live without toilets and have to defecate in the open," he said.
But the reality is far different from the platitudes of the secretary-general, says a new report released by Food and Water Watch.
According to the study, private operations can create obstacles to the human right to affordable and accessible water and sanitation services.
In Guayaquil, Ecuador, water prices increased by 180 percent after the water system was taken over by Interagua, a subsidiary of Bechtel.
The study also said customers of the private water provider in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta experienced a 258-percent increase in tariffs and poor water quality, while only 54 percent of low-income households were provided with new water connections.
A similar pattern of exclusion was also evident in La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, where a private contractor was accused of denying water service to 80,000 families.
"Many couldn't afford the cost of setting up a connection, which for the poorest households cost the equivalent of more than two years of food expenses," the study noted.
At a U.N. press conference last month, President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia, one of the strongest advocates of water as a basic human right, told reporters: "Water is life. Water is humanity. The right to water is just as important as any other human right."
Backed by a 100-million-dollar loan from the Venezuela-based Andean Development Corporation, Bolivia has launched a major development project to supply rural municipalities with water for human consumption, irrigation and cattle rearing.
Sue Yardley, senior public policy officer at Tearfund, and a member of End Water Poverty, told IPS that cost recovery is a sound principle, often necessary for sustainable water and sanitation services over time.
But it has to be applied flexibly, focusing on those that can afford to pay alongside measures to ensure that cost recovery doesn't become a barrier to access for poor people, she added.
In its report, Food and Water Watch categorically says that entrusting water utility operations to private enterprises is an inadequate method of realising the human right to water.
The study, titled "Water = Life: How Privatisation Undermines the Human Right to Water", shows that poor, rural communities with weak governments can better deliver safe, clean, affordable water to their residents by partnering with one another.
"Yet the same communities that struggle to access this essential resource are also vulnerable to privatisation schemes that hike up prices, and leave the poor unable to afford basic water services," says Food and Water Watch's Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.
While privatised water service has been shown to obstruct the human right to water, research shows that municipalities can deliver safe, affordable water to residents by pooling resources in public-public partnerships (PUPs).
According to the study, PUPs can mitigate price increases and allow communities to avoid other problems associated with privatised water service because they eliminate the profit margin that is mandatory in privatised water delivery.
Mundia Matongo, policy and research officer at WaterAid Zambia and a member of End Water Poverty, told IPS, "Just to be clear, the general understanding is that water is both a social and economic good."
As such, he said, it should be available first as a matter of right, and then that supply should be sustainable, which entails the users paying the right price. Too low a price would mean the supply won't be sustained.
Taking the Zambian case as an example, he said, the water pricing model is based on a cross subsidy, with the rich paying for the poor. Serena O'Sullivan of End Water Poverty told IPS: "I would say that there needs to be much closer regulation and enforcement of correct pricing plans."
"What we also find is that those communities most marginalised, such as families living in informal settlements, are forced to pay huge and poverty-inducing costs for water by unscrupulous government contracted firms or private suppliers - even in emerging economy countries such as India."
This is absolutely not acceptable and the United Nations and its member states must ensure this ends by ensuring practical and funded country plans for water access, O'Sullivan declared.

OneWorld.net

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Journal/Ultrasounds worsen Asia women shortage: UN

Increased access to technology that allows parents to know the sex of their foetus has left Asia short of 117 million women, mostly in China and India, the UN said on Thursday.

The trend is expected to influence the affected countries for more than 50 years, particularly through a shortage of brides for Chinese and Indian men, according to experts at a conference organised by the UN and Vietnam in Hanoi.
"This skewed population sex ratio reflects a preference for sons, in combination with increasing access to new sex-selection technology" such as ultrasound, the UN Population Fund said in a conference paper.
Sex determination leads many parents to resort to "selective abortions", said French demographer Christophe Guilmoto.
In most countries the sex ratio at birth ranges from 104 to 106 male births for every 100 females, "but its level has gradually increased over the last 25 years in several Asian countries, particularly in China and India", the UN said.
UN figures covering the past few years show China with 118.1 male babies for 100 females, India 110.6, Azerbaijan 117.6 and Vietnam 111.2.
"Meanwhile, postnatal discrimination -- expressed through excess deaths among female infants and young girls -- has not entirely disappeared from several countries and reflects the relative neglect of female children," Guilmoto said in a conference paper.
The UN says a preference for sons reflects socio-economic influences and deep-rooted traditions in which sons alone inherit property, care for ageing parents and so on, while daughters may require dowries and leave their families once married.
Guilmoto said that even if the sex ratio at birth returned to normal within 10 years, Chinese and Indian men would still face a "marriage squeeze" for several decades.
"Not only would these men have to marry significantly older, but this growing marriage imbalance would also lead to a rapid rise in male bachelorhood... an important change in countries where almost everyone used to get married," Guilmoto said.
In China most parents are banned from having more than one child.
"Dealing with the future demographic consequences of past and present sex imbalances at birth and their societal impact may soon become the next challenge to respective governments," Guilmoto said.
Though some countries like Vietnam prohibit foetal sex determination, Guilmoto said such bans are difficult to enforce.
Heeran Chun, of Jungwon University in South Korea, said her country is "unique" in bringing down to near-normal levels its high sex ratio which peaked in the early 1990s.

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Journal/A global agenda for seven billion

Late next month, a child will be born - the 7th billion citizen of planet Earth. We will never know the circumstances into which he or she was born. We do know that the baby will enter a world of vast and unpredictable change - environmental, economic, geopolitical, technological, and demographic.

The world’s population has tripled since the United Nations was created in 1945. And our numbers keep growing, with corresponding pressures on land, energy, food, and water. The global economy is generating pressures as well: rising joblessness, widening social inequalities, and the emergence of new economic powers.

These trends link the fate and future of today’s seven billion people as never before. No nation alone can solve the great global challenges of the twenty-first century. International cooperation is a universal need.

The 66th session of the UN General Assembly is a renewed opportunity for the countries of the world to set aside narrow, short-term interests and commit to cooperative efforts to address humanity’s long-term imperatives. At a time when all nations are experiencing individual challenges, we need to forge a worldwide common agenda that can help to ensure that the seven billionth baby and future generations grow up in a world characterised by sustainable peace, prosperity, freedom, and justice.

To help create this future, I am focusing my second term as Secretary-General on five global imperatives - five generational opportunities to shape the world of tomorrow by the decisions we make today.

The first and greatest of these imperatives is sustainable development. We all must understand that saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, and advancing economic growth are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.

In the next five years, we need to create a new economic vision for sustainable development and forge global consensus on a binding climate change agreement. Fostering economic growth, realizing the Millennium Development Goals, and combating climate change will all depend on creating a new energy system for the twenty-first century and extending it to every person on the planet.

"Palestinians deserve a state. Israel needs security. Both want peace."
- Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-general of the UN

Prevention as a framework for international cooperation is a second opportunity. This year, the UN peacekeeping budget will total $8bn. Think of what we could save by avoiding conflicts - by deploying political mediation missions, for example, rather than troops. We know how to do this. Our record proves it - in Guinea, Kenya, and Kyrgyzstan.

A third imperative is building a safer and more secure world. In this effort, we must be courageous in standing up for democracy, human rights, and peace. This year was one of signature achievements in restoring and securing peace - in Cote d’Ivoire, Darfur, Egypt, and elsewhere. But hatred and bloodshed still stand in the way of our vision for peace.

In the Middle East, we must break the stalemate. Palestinians deserve a state. Israel needs security. Both want peace. A negotiated settlement can produce these outcomes, and the UN is a platform for forging such a peace.
So, too, will we continue our efforts to foster democratic governance in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. And, in the name of all of humanity, we will continue to push forward on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, in service of realising a world free of nuclear weapons.
The fourth big opportunity is supporting countries in transition. This year's dramatic events in North Africa and the Middle East inspired people around the globe. Let us help make the Arab Spring a true season of hope for all.

In Libya, we are deploying a new UN support mission to assist the country’s transitional authorities in establishing a new government and legal order, consistent with the aspirations of the Libyan people. Syria is a special concern. For six months we have seen escalating violence and repression. The government has repeatedly pledged to undertake reforms and listen to its people. It has not done so. The moment to act is now. The violence must stop.

Last but not least is the imperative of working with and for women and young people. 
Women hold up more than half the sky and represent much of the world’s unrealised potential. We need their full engagement - in government, business, and civil society. The UN has placed a high priority on promoting women at all levels of the organisation and this year, for the first time, UN Women is operating to promote the interests and rights of women all over the world.
Seven billion people now look toward the United Nations for solutions to the world’s great global challenges. They hold different religions and backgrounds but common dreams and aspirations. Our global future depends on bringing these individual talents and universal rights together in common cause. Let our common agenda begin.

Credit: Project Syndicate

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Journal/How Anwar Al-Awlaki Inspired Terror From Across the Globe

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, left to right, are shown in these file photos. (Muhammad ud-Deen/AP Photo|Bell County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images|U.S. Marshals Service/AP Photo)

When President Obama addressed the nation about the death of high-profile al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki Anwar al-Awlaki today, he said the drone strike that took out the U.S.-born radical removed the man who "took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans."

While al-Awlaki was not the trigger-man in any of the 19 terror operations to which he is linked, U.S. officials and terror experts said that his hand was visible in all of them -- whether by simply pushing the attackers over the violent edge or by personally guiding them through operations.

"There's no question that Anwar al-Awlaki was the modern day terrorist," said Seth Jones, a terror analyst at the RAND Corporation and U.S. government consultant. "He used a combination of involvement in operations... and an almost unparalleled use of social media -- YouTube, broader internet sites, Facebook, Twitter -- to get his propaganda messages out."

In one instance in particular, Jones said al-Awlaki was a hands-on player in the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest flight 253 with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas Day in 2009 after Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen and met al-Awlaki.

"Al-Awlaki actually helped get him in a jihadi camp, helped him get access to the underwear bomb and then actually walked him through [it]," Jones said. "He wanted [Abdulmutallab] to wait to explode [the bomb] over American airspace."

Al-Awlaki also taught Abdulmutallab to avoid detection while traveling internationally before the doomed plot, Jones said.

"So there was actually direct operational-level and strategic-level guidance to the bomber himself," he said. "This is more than just recruitment."

In their remarks today, both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted al-Awlaki's direct involvement in the Christmas Day plot.

Other times, al-Awlaki appeared to be able to push potential recruits into action from thousands of miles away. A month before Adbulmutallab failed to blow up Northwest flight 253, prosecutors say U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire on a Texas Army base, killing 13 people and wounding another 30. Investigators later found Hasan had exchanged several emails with al-Awlaki in which al-Awlaki justified the planned killings.

In some cases, al-Awlaki did not have to speak directly to the recruit at all.

In July 2011, a Brooklyn man was convicted of planning to travel to the Middle East to join the jihad and kill U.S. soldiers there, according to the FBI. In the course of their investigation, federal officials found "the defendant had been radicalized, in part, by Internet speeches by Anwar al-Awlaki..."

"The tone, the subject, then his ability to push it out through multiple media made him really an unprecedented al Qaeda terrorist," Jones said.

Yemen analyst Gregory Johnsen agreed, saying it was not in his operational skills, but his rhetoric that made al-Awlaki invaluable to the terror organization.

"What sort of an impact will [al-Awlaki's death] have on the so-called 'lone-wolf' terrorist?" Johnsen said. "That is, those individuals, those often English-speaking individuals living in the West who seem to be inspired, if not encouraged to carry out attacks by al-Awlaki. And that is where al-Awlaki was a unique voice and someone that a group like al Qaeda will have a difficult time replacing."

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Journal/India earthquake: What makes the region so volatile?

A magnitude 6.9 Himalayan quake on the border between India and Nepal, highlights the extreme hazard the region faces as enormous patches of Earth's crust crash into each other.

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake centered near Sikkim, India, along Nepal's eastern border, highlights the significant quake hazard the region faces as enormous patches of Earth's crust collide and dive under one another.
Heavy rain is hampering relief efforts in a part of the world where building codes – if they exist for seismic hazards at all – are often poorly enforced.
By Himalayan standards, this quake was modest, despite the death toll, says Jean-Philippe Avouac, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In 1934, a magnitude 8.2 quake struck the region. The death toll from that event has been estimated at 30,000 people. The eastern end of the fault segment that ruptured at that time ended where Sunday's quake occurred, Dr. Avouac says.
For the past 15 years, networks of GPS receivers places in key spots along the Himalayan range have been measuring the build-up of strain – strain that smaller quakes, including Sunday's, have failed to relieve.
"We know that such earthquakes are overdue," Avouac says, referring to the 1934 event. "We have a lot of energy that needs to be released at some point."
That energy comes from the actions of one of the most dynamic plate boundaries on the planet – where two enormous, migrating patches of the planet's surface are vying to occupy the same spot.
The story, as best as scientists can tell, starts about 150 million years ago. A chunk of Antarctica split from the continent to begin its transformation into India and Madagascar. By 90 million years ago, India and Madagascar had split, with India headed north into the Tethys Sea.
By 35 million years ago, India was well into its slow-motion collision with what would become Eurasia.
India's transoceanic cruise was slower than a snail's pace by Formula One standards. But in the world of plate tectonics, India moved a blistering 30 feet per century. (By contrast, California's San Andreas fault, the border between the North American and Pacific plates creeps along at an average pace of around 16 feet per century.)
Once the Big Crunch began, India slowed to roughly half of its pre-collision speed.
Often, head-on collisions between plates take place along ocean trenches as denser ocean crust slides beneath more-buoyant continental crust, or one slab of oceanic crust slides under another. This action, known as subduction, triggers the most powerful earthquakes on the planet. And it builds mountains – most notably, volcanoes
Where two continental plates collide, they generally stop moving toward each other, notes Dietmar Müller, a geophysicist at the University of Sydney in Australia.
In India's case, however, sub-continent met continent in a crust-buckling collision that continues to build the Himalayan Mountains to this day. The collision involves the upper portion of India's crusts. Meanwhile, India's deeper, denser crust is thought to be sliding beneath the Tibetan Plateau, giving that feature its high elevation.
In effect, India and Eurasia meet along a subduction zone without volcanoes.
Responding proactively to the region's seismic risk is a challenge, notes Brian Tucker, a geophysicist who heads GeoHazards International, a non-governmental organization aimed at helping communities increase their resilience to seismic hazards.

Recent earthquake in Nepal

Even top officials in Nepal haven't been fully aware of the repeated risk their country faces, he says.
Dr. Tucker recalls meeting with one cabinet minister who, when discussing the need for better building codes, replied, "I really don't understand why you're here, because we already had our earthquake, in 1934," Tucker recalls.
"Outside his window you could see the Himalayas," Tucker conitinues. "I told him that as long as you see those mountains, you are in earthquake country."
Although designing for earthquake resistance can add between 5 percent and 10 percent to the cost of a building, even people in low-income countries will opt for it, he says.
And schools are a good place to start if the results from 12-year-old Nepalese project are any indication.
GeoHazard International commissioned a survey of villages to see which buildings residents were willing to pay extra to see reinforced. The winner: Schools.
So the organization teamed up with locals to work on the schools. So far, the buildings haven't undergone the ultimate test, Tucker says. The hope is, however, that when a quake does occur, residents will see the benefits of building for earthquake resistance and begin to follow suit with other buildings, including their homes.
But cities are a tougher nut to crack.
Within the past 10 months, a group of Tucker's colleagues when back to Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, to gauge the city's progress.
"They were really disheartened," he says. "Population is booming and they being continually put in these very vulnerable, treacherous buildings" that continue to rise, he says.
One tack his group is considering: Putting a focus on new hotels, which cater to tourists and diplomats. The approach might seem odd given the economic vulnerability much of the Nepalese population, he acknowledges.
But the incentives are there, he continues: Nepal relies heavily on tourism for income. And these hotels often serve as residences and offices for diplomats and international organizations, as they did in Haiti before a devastating quake there in 2010 reduced those hotels to rubble.
These buildings would hold the potential to serve as examples for quake-resistant construction techniques and, if the need arises, as examples of the benefits those techniques yield when a quake strikes, he suggests.

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Journal/How the miracle fruit changes sour into sweet

Pop a “miracle berry” into your mouth, and you might wonder if it was named by an overreaching marketing department. The small red fruit tastes of very little – it has a “mildly sweet tang… [like] a less flavorful cranberry”. But it’s not the taste of the fruit itself that matters. To understand why the berry gets its name, you need to eat something acidic. The berries have the ability to make sour foods taste deliciously sweet. Munch one, and you can swig vinegar like it was a milkshake, or bite lemons as if they were candy.

The secret to the fruit’s taste-transforming powers is a protein called miraculin. Now, Ayako Koizumi from the University of Tokyo has discovered just how the protein acts upon our tongues.
Two groups of scientists independently isolated miraculin from miracle berries in 1968, but people have been experiencing its effects for far longer. West Africans have chewed miracle berries (Richadella dulcifica) before their meals for centuries, to get those unusual sweet hits from otherwise sour food. Europeans became aware of the fruit in 1725, when French explorer Chevalier des Marchais described its use.

In the 1970s, an American company called Miralin tried to develop miraculin as a simple way of getting a sugar rush without having to gorge on cakes and sweets. Their attempt was nixed by the US Food and Drug Administration, who decided to classify miraculin as an additive, dooming it to years of further testing. Miralin folded, amid suspicions of foul play from the sugar industry. The miracle berries never quite hit the big time, but they do make occasional appearances at high-class events known as “flavour-tripping parties”.

While party-goers thrilled at the miracle fruit’s tongue-teasing trick, scientists were equally intrigued. Various groups have pored over miraculin’s properties in great detail. Thanks to their efforts, we know a lot about the protein’s structure, and how acidity, temperature and dose affect its taste-altering powers. By comparison, we still know very little about how it actually works.

The general idea is that miraculin changes the shape of proteins on our tongues called sweet receptors. These proteins are normally set off by sugars, but when miraculin disfigures them, they respond to acids too. Suddenly, sour mouthfuls are registered as sweet ones.
According to Koizumi’s experiments, this explanation is not quite right. She showed that miraculin does stick directly to sweet receptors, and it latches on more strongly than do other conventional sweeteners like aspartame or saccharin. In neutral conditions, neither acidic nor alkaline, miraculin stops these other sweeteners from getting a hold on the sweet receptors. It actually represses the receptors, stopping them from doing their job. Under acidic conditions, the opposite happens – miraculin supercharges the sweet receptors. It distorts them into an active shape, while also making them extra-sensitive to sweeteners like aspartame.

Here, then, is what happens when you chomp on a miracle berry. Miraculin sits on your sweet receptors for an hour or so. For most of that time, it silences the receptors, which is why the fruit itself tastes of very little. Whenever you take a bite or swig of something acidic, miraculin gains a few extra protons and changes shape. In doing so, it also changes the shape of the sweet receptors it has stuck to, sending them into a signalling frenzy.
Koizumi also looked at a second taste-changing protein called neoculin. This one comes from the Malaysia lumbah plant; it also converts sourness to sweetness, and it also sticks to sweet receptors. But the similarities stop there.
Amazingly, miraculin and neoculin are completely unrelated. They have different shapes and sizes, they are made from different chains of amino acids, and they stick to different parts of the sweet receptor. Unlike miraculin, neoculin tastes sweet in its own right, and it transforms sour tastes into an even stronger sweet buzz. The miraculous aspect of these two proteins is not that they turn sour into sweet, but that they have evolved to do the same thing through two completely different means.

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