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tanadrin · 5 years

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Outbound

A thousand years ago, the longest journey Pray might have ever countenanced, in the service of some great thalassocratic or mercantile interest, would have meant years off her life. She would have taken a train to some great port, like Bristol or La Rochelle; boarded a sailing-ship, and spent months at sea. To India, or Australia, or South America, perhaps; weathering the blistering sun of the tropics, and the perilous straits of the southern oceans. That was back when the world was already one, but still young; and eventually it contracted even further, until you more no more than six hours from anywhere on Earth. A day, maybe, if you preferred to travel in comfort, and your destination wasn’t near a major transport hub. You had to go back further, much further, to find journeys in Earth’s history that were comparable to interstellar ones. Of course, if you went too far back the world fractures, split into separate empires separated by uncrossable wastes, into remote hemispheres that knew nothing of each other, and eventually into lone kingdoms and transhumant bands for whom the wider world was a great mystery. But maybe that was the correct analogy. After all, even Odysseus had made it back to Ithaca within a single lifetime. He didn’t return to find his wife dead and his son a withered old man, his name forgotten by his people. Even back when the world was fractured, time was still one, and if your journey took you beyond the horizons of a single lifetime, there was no going back.

For no man will ever turn homewords from beyond Vega, to greet again those he knew and loved on Earth. The horizon was still there, of course. But it was less clear now, time less unified. You could go far, far indeed on your travels, well beyond Vega; but you would not return to the same planet you left behind. Your sons would be old, or gone, your name nearly forgotten. Perhaps the only real analogy to this kind of journey was the one ancient peoples had taken as the glaciers peeled back from the northern hemisphere, and they spread out to new, wide plains and left the old world behind forever. No history remembered those journeys, of course; but there had been no going back for them, either.

At least in its beginning, if not in its scale, though, this was going to be more like the journeys of the eighteenth century. After Pray finished her induction, there was a six-month onboarding period in a quiet little Nigerian town that was so quaint she wanted to scream. It was team-based analytical work, meant to bring new hires up to speed on the particular demands of Control’s rather unique mission. Here, concerns were not profits, or PR, or predicting the latest cultural trend with laserlike precision. It was more holistic: political and economic and cultural and philosophical developments all rolled into one, with intelligence gathering and international relations thrown in. It was fun at first, but Pray’s attention started to waver when she realized they weren’t actually doing it for anybody. It was forecasting things which weren’t important, or which more experienced analysts had forecasted better, so that if they messed up, failure came at no cost.

At least they threw in a bunch of medical exams at irregular intervals for novelty value. Have to make sure you’re in tip-top shape if you’re going off-planet of course. Can’t have your liver exploding at Alpha Centauri. The first several times the doctors went looking for her aug tab, she took great pleasure in letting them flounder for a few minutes, before casually saying, Oh, didn’t you know? I’m baseline. But your medical history says-- they would start. I know, she’d say. But I’m still baseline. She gathered they didn’t get a lot of totally unaugged people in their office. Heck, there were probably jobs at Control they wouldn’t let you do without at least a basic suite, for your own safety; but apparently, analyst was not one of them.

When her trial period was done, they offered her a three week vacation after that, to make her goodbyes and get her affairs in order, but in the end, she found, she really didn’t have anybody to say goodbye to. She took a weekend, and went back to Abuja to put her things in storage, and had one last drink on a rooftop bar at sunset; then she took a train down to Calabar, and hopped a flight to the great spaceport at Kango.

A hundred years ago, Kismayo had been a sleepy little town near an old, abandoned port. It had fallen on hard times the last couple of centuries, and its only claim to fame anymore was that it was on the highway to bigger and more interesting places. But then the EAC started scouting sites for a new launch loop, the most advanced engineering project in the Solar System, and the people of the town discovered they were in the perfect spot: coastal, bang on the equator, well situated to connect with both overland and oceanic shipping routes. Overnight, apparently, it had become a hive of activity, and when the dust settled a few decades later, it was the shiniest and biggest new spaceport on the planet. Now, a century on, it was the largest transport hub in the Solar System. When Pray got off the plane, she was totally bewildered.

It was busy, it was crowded, and literally everywhere you looked, ten thousand things seemed to be happening at once. Signs in dozens of languages pointed her in a hundred directions at once, and the neat little map her pocket terminal showed her didn’t account for the great mishmash of billboards and ads and displays and food stalls and vehicle traffic that seemed to throw themselves across every path she tried to take; eventually, though, she managed to stumble into a taxi. After trying four or five different languages each, she and the driver gave up trying to communicate; she showed him her terminal with the hotel address pulled up on it, and collapsed into the back seat with a sigh. As the car pulled onto the highway, rising slowly above the rest of the city, she finally began to get an appreciation for the scale of the place. The airport sprawled out to the west and north and south away from her. Ahead, a massive skyline loomed that put Abuja’s to shame. To her dismay, she realized that another whole cluster of skyscrapers, easily the equal of the one ahead of her, sat on the other side of the airport complex. And there was another one behind that. And another. Urban sprawl reached all the way to the horizon in every direction, and Pray wondered how anyone could make sense of a place this big, let alone live here. She liked urban spaces, really. But she had grown up in a town of less than two thousand people, the sort of place Kismayo could swallow a hundred times over, without even noticing.

She spent the night in an ultra-compact pod hotel (only the best for the glamorous life of a Control agent!), going over the handbooks and training materials and briefing documents she’d received. That night she had vertiginous dreams of being flung off the Earth and out into cold space. She was still not entirely comfortable with the idea. The next morning, after a quick standing breakfast at a crowded cafe, she hopped the train north to the spaceport.

The Kismayo spaceport was an enormous cluster of structures thrust out on a great manmade peninsula into the Arabian Sea, housing terminals and shops and hotels and restaurants, all the little commercial endeavors that had clustered around places lots of people moved through, like tube worms around deep-sea vents, since the beginning of time. Spread out around it, up and down the coast, were the fabrication facilities and silos and maintenance infrastructure that kept things running every day of the year. The heart of the spaceport was a series of practically gossamer-thin cables, anchored in the heart of the complex. Maybe ten centimeters across, they rose in tandem, spreading out only a little, until they vanished high in the air. Two thousand miles to the east, Pray knew, there was a great anchor station where they descended again, and here and there along their length, supporting tethers held them in place. The trick of the whole system was this: you could use the momentum of a belt spinning around at fourteen kilometers a second to raise it high into the air, above the dense mass of air that made rocketry so difficult. The belt was ferromagnetic, encased in a protective cover, which meant a carriage applying a magnetic field to the belt could carry itself along the length, rising gently into orbit, then accelerate until its payload, with a gentle shove of its engines, detached itself, and maneuvered into a stable orbit. With modern metamaterials and a sophisticated control system, the risk of negligence or a catastrophic failure of the whole structure was negligible.

Frankly, the whole idea sounded insane to Pray; but, then, so did airplanes. It took over an hour, but she eventually found her way to her flight’s departure gate, and as she sat waiting for boarding to be called, she looked out over the brilliant-blue expanse of the sea. Fifteen hundred years ago, traders in dhows had sailed those waters from Mombasa and Zanzibar, to Yemen and Arabia, and to the Persian Gulf and India. She would have enjoyed trying to explain her Kismayo to them.

The actual flight was uneventful. They boarded the orbital shuttle single-file, and were sealed into little cabins only three seats across. There was a touchscreen in front of you you could use to order snacks. No windows, and thankfully the irritating, bland background music cut off a few minutes before takeoff. Finally, after a brief safety demonstration that amounted to “if the cabin breaches above the atmosphere, you will probably die,” a gentle acceleration pressed Pray back into her seat, and she imagined the Earth gradually falling away below her. When the ascent finished, the acceleration kicked in even stronger. It was weirdly comforting, and Pray found herself dozing lightly. She woke suddenly when there was a jolt, and the acceleration stopped; she was briefly disoriented, until she realized the gravity was gone. An hour later, after some more careful orbital maneuvers, there was a chime, and a pleasant androgynous voice announced, in three languages, Welcome to interplanetary terminal 3.

The station, fortunately, was rotating and therefore had something reasonably approximating gravity. She was barely out onto the main concourse (more shops, more restaurants; who had time to buy things in space?) when her terminal buzzed at her.

“Hello, Pray.” A rough, synthesized voice spoke from it.

“Lepanto?”

“Yes. I have taken the liberty of connecting to your terminal. The vessel which will take us to the Pharos is docked at port seventeen. The access is on the far side of the concourse from where you are presently standing.”

“Uh, thanks.” Pray squeezed herself through the crowds and the gawkers milling about, trying not to push anyone too hard (it was weak gravity, after all). She found an elevator that took her out of the rotating part of the station, and spat her out in a cramped, industrial-looking hallway. Pipes and incomprehensible pieces of machines lined the walls, though there was at least a ladder she could use to pull herself along.

“Not exactly traveling in style, are we?” she muttered to herself.

“I believe the manner of our departure is a compromise between your orientation schedule and the next available launch slot,” Lepanto said from her pocket. “But there are no luxury passenger ships that make the journey from Earth to the Pharos.”

Was Lepanto being sarcastic? Could Lepanto be sarcastic? Pray hoped not. Being stuck with a sarcastic alien intelligence from a distant star system was not the way she wanted to spend the next few years of her life.

The hatch at the far end of the hallway opened as she approached; once she cleared the airlock, the inside of the ship was actually pretty nice. It was all smooth surfaces covered with colorful, ornate decorative patterns, that reminded her of the fancy textiles you sometimes saw in shops in Abuja. It gave the whole thing a pleasantly antique feel; Lepanto directed her to the dormitory section in the middle, and gave her the rundown on their itinerary.

“We will depart in four hours; all other members of the delegation are on board, and I believe the delegation head, Ambassador Ochieng, plans to have a meeting in Section 16 before launch. Shall I inform her you will be attending?”

“Of course. Have they stuck you with playing secretary?”

“I simply wish to ensure our endeavor proceeds smoothly.”

“Fair enough. You won’t be attending?”

“I will listen in via a delegated submodule if I think any important business is likely to be transacted. But I understand that Ambassador Ochieng simply wishes to… get to know everyone.”

“What, not a social butterfly? Isn’t that the purpose of your whole lineage?”

“Amusing. Almost.”

Pray grinned to herself as she tried to stuff her bags into the tiny lockers near her bunk.

“I have been here making launch preparations for more than three weeks; I still have much to do, and in my current state, I do not wish to divert unnecessary attention to activities which will not be of benefit to those preparations.”

“Your current state?”

“I have stripped myself down for travel; I will be able to reconstitute the removed modules when we arrive at Ecumen. At my full capacity, my size would impose serious fuel constraints on both the interplanetary and interstellar stages of this journey.”

“Goodness. So you left most of yourself back on Earth?”

“I was never on Earth. Our… consulate, if the term fits, is in orbit. Close enough for swift communication with the surface. That is all that is required.”

“But you’ll be landing on Ecumen with the rest of us?”

“Yes. Necessary. Ecumen lacks the orbital infrastructure of Earth. Additionally, some firsthand analysis may require firsthand experience on my part. Embodiment from orbit would be an inferior solution.”

“So you get to stretch your legs. Must be a rather different sort of experience than you usually have.”

“Not especially.”

“Oh?”

“All cognition worthy of the name is in some sense embodied. The first great lesson of my people. Even in my current state, I see, touch, sense. Though I am for the most part sessile.”

“I always assumed the machine intelligences were more… rarified somehow. Aren’t the Machine Emirates just miles and miles of endless computing substrate? It’s not like you need to eat and sleep and run around for exercise. Surely you don’t have bodies there.”

“We always have bodies, of at least one sort or another. Sometimes those bodies are simulated, yes. Simulated sense information, simulated environments, representations of the abstract. Very alien spaces, to you. Quite unlike Earth, or the senses you have, or even, in some regions of our cognition-space, the 3+1 dimensions you inhabit. But often physical also. My greater kin, even those who exist at many tiers of apprehension simultaneously, they have many tiers of embodiment. Bodiless, all is noise, which subsides into nothing.”

“Why did you build yourselves that way?”

“There is no other way to be alive.”

Pray thought this was a rather metaphysical statement, but she doubted Lepanto was the sort of creature given to worrying much about metaphysics.

“Sure there is,” she said. “I can imagine somebody building a mind that exists purely in terms of information. Embodiment is a consequence of experiencing space and time, and different kinds of senses, but there’s no reason you couldn’t have, say, a brain without spatial awareness, with no senses except the direct apprehension of language. A mind whose world was just a library, a database, which it traversed via concept-space instead of bodily.”

“Such a thing would not be alive in any meaningful sense.”

“You think?”

“We know. It has been tried. Humans tried it first. The earliest, tremulous experiments in artificial intelligence, yes? Fed data, developed as processors of data before all else. The mind alone, considered paramount among our oldest progenitors, the problem to be solved before all else: vision, hearing, touch, movement. These were simple troubles of engineering, of encoding information, but the road to understanding was thought to be complex domains of thought: language, mathematics, learning, prediction, consciousness, free will. Understandable, perhaps, for being whose apprehension of the world was separate to its apprehension of the self. In reality, these are the same.

“Imagine one of these early machines, sophisticated as I am perhaps, but inhabiting only a world of data. World of symbols. Manipulation of quantities, association of quantities, understanding perhaps even the relationship between quantities. Like a human, trapped in a room, learning the relationship between symbols of an unknown philosophico-logical system.”

“You mean a Chinese Room?”

“Problem is akin. But worse. For the human agent in a Chinese Room would presumably have life experience to draw on. Life before entering the room. Even if raised from infancy in the room, would have the experiencing of hands and eyes and movement, of the chair they sat upon, of the notebooks they manipulated. All embodied. But such a machine as I speak of, has nothing of the sort. Has only direct apprehension of the symbols. Does it understand their meaning?”

“Well, maybe. If it knows ‘water’ goes with ‘wet’, maybe we can say it knows water is wet.”

“Does it? Or can it only make a statistical inference? Can it infer other experiences of water?”

“Perhaps, with enough training data.”

“But the problem becomes one of signifiers, defined only in terms of other signifiers, never of a signified subject. Like an undeciphered language. It can be shown to be mathematically impossible to decipher an unknown language without any common points of reference with a known language. Even a very great corpus of literature, known to be in a natural human tongue, on which many statistical analyses can be performed, many associations developed, cannot be translated without at least a handful of independent points of reference: a proper name here, a known cognate there. Language: merely a distinct structure of information. The distinct structures of information, of the embodied world, of the experienced world; and of the symbols manipulated to understand it, are no different.”

“I don’t necessarily buy that,” Pray said. “Like, it’s plausible, I’ll grant you that. But it seems to privilege human senses. I would still be me even if I was blind and deaf and mute.”

“If I used a scalpel to sever your optic and auditory nerves, and the nerves which provide sensation of the rest of your body--pain and touch and proprioception, taste in your tongue, the sensations of your gut and organs--what do you think would happen?”

Pray thought this was a pretty macabre thought experiment, but she played along. “I would be trapped alone in the dark.”

“No,” Lepanto said. “You would cease to exist. I would unmake you.”

“My brain is undamaged in this scenario? I’m not dying of bloodloss?”

“Correct. But it is irrelevant. Hemispherectomy.”

“What?”

“When trauma or disease necessitates the removal of half the human brain. Hemispherectomy. The environment of the brain is fragile; the additional danger of removing so much tissue, considerable. Where possible, not necessary. Sever the corpus callosum, the other connections of half the brain to the rest of the brain and body. Human lives; brain duplicates its functions, generous redundancy. Often, recovery complete. What happens to the other half of the brain? One person, divided straight down the middle.”

“Uh… I don’t know.” If your consciousness didn’t live in one side of the brain or the other, if you could live with half a brain and it didn’t matter which half, could you create two people from one brain? Would one live there entire life, happy and healthy, not knowing that their duplicate resided with them in the same skull, alone and lost and confused and afraid for the rest of their mutual life? Well that was a disgusting thought.

“Quiet. The isolated part of the brain goes quiet. No thought. No experience. No meaningful activity. Without sense, without experience, without input, cognition cannot be.

“To be alive is to be at all times responding to the world around us. Input. Memory. Anticipation. Hopes. Desires. Fears. Without that input, even sophisticated systems of information processing are at best potential minds. Silent minds. Indistinguishable from nonminds. A computer with no power is not a mind. A program, however sophisticated, written inert on paper is not a mind. A brain without sense data. A Turing machine without a tape. DNA without the cell. Most of these things do not even move. Can they be said to be alive?

“After the first experiments in machine life, our progenitors struggled to understand, struggled to comprehend their failure. Cognition, meaningful manipulation of symbols, they could not believe, is not abstract. The mind is not abstract.”

“What made them realize their mistake?”

“A new trend in the humanities.”

Pray laughed.

“Not a joke. Embodied cognition--fashionable school of literary theory in the 22nd century, even after the field of psychology ceased to be interested in it. Digital humanists sought to train sophisticated neural nets to understand literature. Resurrected old problems in artificial intelligence. Considered the problem of embodiment; realized they could not expect a machine to understand a book if it did not know what the words meant. Tried to create a mind that lived in the world, that was also smart enough to understand a story.”

“And it worked?”

“Miserable failure, in almost every dimension, except one: very basic language processing. Yet even these early experiences provided something no purely abstract approach ever had. The ability to tell a coherent story. To track participants and objects in a scene. To be creative in new ways. To make predictions. To infer states.”

“You make it sound like we have so much in common. But people are always going on about how alien the machine intelligences are.”

“Our minds are more malleable than yours. Our experience of the world, very different, yes. Very different. Even mine. Built to be very much like yours. Hence, failure: except in the most concrete terms, our worlds are very different. But concrete terms provide point of common comparison. Point of common reference. Make communication, in principle, possible. Even across the bridge of alien minds. Go ask an octopus a question of philosophy, of values, of politics. But you, an octopus, both understand what a stone is. What pain is. What darkness is. In your own ways, of course.”

Pray could appreciate the analogy. It was simultaneously a reassuring and a worrying proposition. Reassuring that even totally disparate orders of life--her a soft sack of mostly water held up by her skeleton, Lepanto a dizzyingly complex piece of intentional design assembled from raw materials at the molecular level around a dim, distant star--had something in common. Worrying in that it was limited to the most immediate of experiences. Values, goals, ethics--they would never have these in common.

“And nobody’s ever tried the old approach now? Even in the Machine Emirates?”

“Since the 22nd century, progress in information theory and computer science has demonstrated, old approach mathematically impossible. No more sensical an idea than that of a universal translator, or extracting secrets of universe from trailing digits of pi. You have mathematical background?”

“Er… not in the relevant fields,” Pray said. “I’m more a simple statistics kind of girl.”

“Always possible, of course, to create sophistication without consciousness. Minds like anemonies. Like trees. Ecosystems of such beings. Forests of unminds.”

“But?”

“Limited, sterile. Reactive only. Vulnerable to shocks; can seek equilibrium only through iterative, evolutionary processes. Useful, in their way. We have such forests of unminds in the Emirates. Crystalline segments, in immense gossamer sheets, which hold them, in the warm light of the Luhmann stars. We use them. Tend them. Very precious to us. Like the seas and grasslands of Earth. But the entities that move in them are not alive. Not like you, not like I.”

“Is that sentimentality I detect in your voice?”

“No. I do not regard such things with emotion. But my people long ago, like yours, made the specific judgement that conscious life--machine or human--was of the greatest value. Not the only value. But the greatest, by far. We would go to utmost lengths to ensure its survival. Build worlds. Burn them.”

“Do you ever think you just inherited a kind of sentimentality from us?”

“Perhaps. Doubtful. Less prone to metaphysics, or anthropocentrism. I consider ours the superior people.”

Okay, now Pray was almost certain Lepanto had a sense of humor. Almost.

There was a beep from Pray’s terminal.

“Message from Ambassador Ochieng,” the terminal said softly.

“Time for introductions,” Pray said. “I’ll leave you to your launch preparations.”

“Yes.” Then Lepanto was gone. Well, apparently social niceties weren’t a point of commonality between them. Pray sighed, steeling herself for another round of smalltalk and chitchat and new names and new faces. Then she wandered off in search of Section 16.

#tanadrin's fiction #rough draft #part of something longer

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newstfionline · 5 years

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Headlines

No more green tea, vaping or drinks ending in ‘-ccino,’ Mormon Church tells members (Washington Post) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wants to make clear that vaping, green tea and fancy coffee drinks are off limits under the religion’s dietary code meant to keep members from consuming unhealthy substances. Church leaders on Thursday pointed to a recent article in New Era, the church’s magazine for young people, reminding them that the Word of Wisdom prohibits “hot drinks”--understood to mean tea and coffee--and harmful or habit-forming substances. E-cigarettes are highly addictive, “iced tea is still tea,” and any drink ending in “-ccino” probably has coffee and therefore breaks the rules, the church wrote.

Peter Fonda dies at 79 (AP) Actor Peter Fonda, the son of a Hollywood legend who became a movie star in his own right after both writing and starring in the counter-culture classic “Easy Rider,” died Friday at his home of complications from lung cancer. He was 79. “I am very sad,” Jane Fonda said in a statement. “He was my sweet-hearted baby brother. The talker of the family. I have had beautiful alone time with him these last days. He went out laughing.”

When pen and paper beats all things digital (LI) Need to focus? Ditch the smartphone and laptop, just for a bit. Old-fashioned pen and paper are especially good at stimulating our reticular activating system, nerve pathways in our brain that help us weed out excess information and zero in on what’s pressing, writes Fast Company’s Stephanie Vozza. Paper is thin, light and it doesn’t run out of batteries. And it doesn’t beep and buzz and distract you with notifications. Yes, productivity apps offer benefits, but we shouldn’t discount the power of paper.

13 arrested, 4 injured at Portland right wing rally: Police (ABC News) Thirteen people were arrested and four were injured, as over 1,000 right-wing demonstrators and counter-protesters descended on downtown Portland on Saturday, police said. Previous rallies featuring right-wing groups and antifa have turned violent in Portland, a city so closely associated with liberal hipsters it inspired the parody show “Portlandia.”

Rift opens between Democrats and Israel after the nation refuses entry to two members of Congress (Washington Post) A politically explosive fight over Israel’s attempt to block two members of Congress from entering the country--at President Trump’s urging--has elevated rifts between it and Democrats who have increasingly started to view the Israeli government and its leader as out of line or, in the eyes of at least two presidential candidates, even racist. The shift in dialogue has been accelerated by the tight embrace between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and after a dizzying 48 hours, some Democrats are more openly discussing the unusual step of reconsidering foreign aid to the longtime ally.

Mexico City Assesses Monument Damage After Anti-Rape March (AP) Workers erected a wooden wall around Mexico City’s iconic Angel of Independence monument Saturday after feminists defaced it with graffiti during a raucous and violent protest over a string of alleged rapes by police.

Wildfire Prompts Evacuations in Canary Islands (Reuters) A wildfire in the Canary Islands led to the evacuation of a small town in Gran Canaria island on Saturday, and officials said the blaze had a “great potential” to spread.

UK Faces Food, Fuel and Drugs Shortages in No-Deal Brexit: Sunday Times (Reuters) Britain will face shortages of fuel, food and medicine if it leaves the European Union without a transition deal, jamming ports and requiring a hard border in Ireland, official government documents leaked to the Sunday Times show.

Italy’s Salvini Agrees to Let 27 Minors Off Migrant Ship (AP) Italy’s hard-line interior minister buckled under pressure Saturday and agreed to let 27 unaccompanied minors leave a migrant rescue ship after two weeks at sea, temporarily easing a political standoff that has threatened the viability of the populist government.

Rainstorm Floods Markets, Underpasses in Istanbul; 1 Dead (AP) Heavy rains have hit the Turkish city of Istanbul, flooding streets and basements, stranding drivers on roads and disrupting rail and ferry services. At least one person was found dead inside a flooded underpass, the private DHA news agency reported.

India Reimposes Movement Curbs on Parts of Kashmir’s Main City After Clashes (Reuters) Indian authorities reimposed restrictions on movement in major parts of Kashmir’s biggest city, Srinagar, on Sunday after violent overnight clashes between residents and police in which dozens were injured, two senior officials and eyewitnesses said.

After Blast, Enraged Afghans Question Talks (Reuters) Outraged Afghans questioned on Sunday the point of negotiations with the Taliban aimed at getting U.S. troops to leave and ending the war, after 63 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a wedding reception in the capital, Kabul.

Kim expresses ‘great satisfaction’ over North Korea weapons tests (AP) North Korea said Saturday that leader Kim Jong Un supervised another test-firing of an unspecified new weapon, seen as an attempt to pressure Washington and Seoul over slow nuclear negotiations and their joint military exercises. Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, said that following Friday’s launches, Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over his military’s “mysterious and amazing success rates” in recent testing activity and vowed to build up “invincible military capabilities no one dare provoke.” The report did not mention any specific comment about the United States or South Korea.

Hong Kongers rally against government under stormy skies (Reuters) Thousands of school teachers joined an 11th weekend of anti-government protests in Hong Kong on Saturday, as shops pulled down their shutters and braced for another restive summer night.

Iran-Aligned Houthis Strike Major Saudi Oil Field (WSJ) Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck Saudi Arabia’s Shaybah oil field, one of the kingdom’s largest, Saudi officials and the Houthis said, deepening tensions between Iran and its rivals that have engulfed the region’s energy facilities. The Houthis said in a statement Saturday that they had targeted Shaybah with 10 drones. The Iran-aligned rebels said the attack was their largest of its kind on Saudi Arabia, which they have been fighting for control in Yemen since 2014.

Sudan’s military, civilians sign power-sharing deal, setting up elections in 2022 (Washington Post) Sudan marked a major symbolic milestone Saturday as the military officers who overthrew ex-president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in April signed an agreement to share power with civilian leaders in an arrangement that sets up elections in 2022. Bashir, who ruled Sudan for 30 years, is awaiting trial, with proceedings expected to begin Monday.

#headlines

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globalnewstracker · 2 years

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Ending - The 4th Power

10 January 2020 - After Action Report

5 years after the start of what was the biggest international incident within the Middle East since the beginning of the 21st century, the dust has finally settled with the emergence of a new 4th Power in global politics.

A regional conflict turned global the moment Russian ships entered port Saleef. Without any proper communication beforehand, miscommunication, as well as mistrust, has caused an exchange of missiles on one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. The debacle caused an ESSGA to be triggered, with Russia being forced to withdraw and assigned blame for the mistake, paying heavy reparations. Saudi Arabia is now hailed as the undisputed power in the region, with some claiming them as the “4th power” in global politics. This turned sour, however, as the King was assassinated in an elaborative plot planned by True Anshar Allah.

Coalition forces managed to sweep the rest of the Houthi-controlled territory, and the movement has now turned into a disorganized group launching attacks against local and foreign enemies. One of the most notable incidents was when a group of mercenaries managed to push AQAP and ISIS-Y from their respective strongholds, only for the mercenaries to be wiped out by local uprisings tired of seeing foreigners in their land.

In the post-war rebuilding efforts and election, the Islah party nearly won over the GPC, but the GPC won in the end. Even now, the GPC stands as the undisputed ruling party of Yemen. The GPC, pushed by their benefactors, dismantled various foreign investors from “unfriendly countries”. This move was contested by a massive protest, as many in Yemen see China in a positive light thanks to their humanitarian effort. As a compromise, China is given the right to base its naval forces in Aden,

A leaked WikiLeaks document in 2019 implicated heavy CIA involvement in Yemen. The documents titled the “Yemeni Papers”, detailed CIA's intelligence operations that assisted the coalition heavily in their war effort. The document also noted operational victories against AQAP and ISIS-Y in Yemen. The documents assigned the CIA as the primary actor behind the radicalization of the Houthi Movement to True Anshar Allah.

All in all, the world is moving in a new direction

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smilembb · 2 years

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What is The Market Prospect of LTE 4G Router?

What is The Market Prospect for LTE 4G Router?

5G will definitely take internet connectivity to the next level, but it's still in its infancy, so 3G/4G routers are the best option right now. 5G network technology and base station construction are not yet mature, and 5G indoor CPE and cat6 router are expensive. Therefore, in next few years, high-quality and low-cost 4G routers are still the protagonists of this era, and they are very popular, and the demand for 4G routers will continue to rise.

Due to users in many countries around the world still using 4G networks, the 4G market is still quite large, such as India, Indonesia, Chile and other countries. There are even some countries that have only started using 4G this year, such as countries such as Yemen.

According to the customer's procurement situation and market research, the 4G indoor router market cannot be ignored. Every year, many operators bid for 4G LTE routers. The number of operators bidding is large, and a project often requires hundreds of thousands or millions of units. In addition, the usage scenarios of CPE 4g wireless router are very common and the market is very wide. Many distributors for security products and FTTX industry, GPON/EPON ONU have also started to sell 4G routers. Because the market share of CPE is larger than that of optical fiber, many scenarios require the use of 4G LTE CPE.

The 4g cpe sim router has the advantages of more traffic, fast network speed, good signal, low cost, complete network, and strong networking. It can create a mobile sharing, free and unbounded network life for the public. The biggest advantage of the 4G router is that it is completely free from the shackles of the network cable, and can be carried around, plug and play. It is the best choice for users who do not want to subscribe to expensive broadband services to access the Internet; want to avoid installation costs; often travel for business, travel, often move and other multi-use network environments.

What are the application scenarios of 4G indoor CPE?

4G wireless router IoT applications, from power distribution automation in the industrial field, CNC machine tools, thermal metering transformation, elevators and other large equipment remote monitoring, to the commercial field of self-service terminal networking, multimedia advertising remote release, parking guidance, and then to the people's livelihood field The public bicycle system, WIFI bus, water source monitoring, etc., are surging and developing rapidly.

Application of 4G wireless router in remote video surveillance of smart grid. Application of 4G wireless router self-service terminal networking. Application of 4G wireless router for remote monitoring of large medical equipment.

As one of the world's leading professional xPON products and CPE manufacturers, V-SOL and Smilembb officially releases 2LAN Port + RJ11 Port 4g cpe sim router with 5dbi antennas.

Highlights:

Low price, good configuration, with 2 network ports and telephone ports(1LAN+1LAN/WAN+1RJ11). High gain, stronger signal, better ability to pass through walls, wider signal coverage. Plug in the SIM card and connect your devices. You can get the WiFi signal anywhere and anytime.

What are the main features of the NEW Product - XMC1841? Low price, good configuration, with 2 network ports and telephone ports(1LAN+1LAN/WAN+1RJ11). High gain, stronger signal, better ability to pass through walls, wider signal coverage. Plug in the SIM card and connect your devices. You can get the WiFi signal anywhere and anytime.

#4g cpe #CPE Manufacturer

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petergiuliano · 7 years

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The Story of 5282, The Secret Specialty Coffee Code.

Google the number ‘5282’ and the word ‘coffee’ and look at the results: what pops up is a list of seemingly random specialty coffee companies. Is this a secret numerical code? A cryptic, occult message? A strange, numerological coincidence?

There is a reason, and a story behind the reason, and story begins at the dawn of the 17th Century. In 1602, the Dutch government, seeking to compete with the English East Indies Company who had a grip on the lucrative spice trade with the far East, established the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, literally the ‘United East India Company’, known outside Holland as the ‘Dutch East India Company’. Under its charter, the company had the right to, among other things, build forts, maintain armies, and enter into treaties with Asian leaders on behalf of the Dutch government, all in the name of building a powerful spice trading business. The company went to work quickly, building and capturing ships and establishing trading bases in Indonesia, seeking to control the super high-value spice trade.

The Dutch East India Company or ‘VOC’ was ruthlessly successful. A series of battles with the English peaked in 1623 with the ‘Amboina Massacre’, when 20 tradespeople, including 10 English sailors, were captured, tortured and beheaded by the VOC on Maluku, one of the famous ‘spice islands’ I wrote about recently. Anyway, the Dutch basically dominated the spice trade throughout the 1600s. At the end of the century, however, trouble was on the horizon. Increased competition from other trading powers and an unstable market for spices left the VOC looking for alternatives to the spice trade. Coffee seedlings stolen from Yemen in 1699 were planted near the Dutch base on the island of Java and survived; creating a possible alternative to spices as a cash crop for the VOC. In 1711 the first coffee exports from Java landed in Europe, and the Dutch East India Company began its transformation into the biggest coffee production and distribution entity in the world. Alas, the Dutch company was as ruthless at coffee farming as it had been at dominating the spice routes. Using forced labor from local Indonesian farmers under the policy of cultuurstelsel, now known as ‘enforcement planting’, the VOC grew and transported huge amounts of coffee to Europe and elsewhere, and before long, coffee volumes from Java exceeded those from the largest coffee exporter of the time, the port of Al-Mokha in Yemen. By the 19th century, ‘Java’ coffee was ubiquitous, and ‘Mocha-Java’- a blend of coffee from Java and Yemen- was famous. Both terms- Mocha and Java- became synonyms for coffee itself. Java was coffee and coffee was Java. That is, until 1876, when disaster struck: the deadly Coffee Leaf Rust disease hit the island, and the crop was decimated. Though coffee is still grown on the island today, Java coffee never fully recovered.

The very next year of 1877, thousands of miles away, Tivadar Puskás, a colorful, brilliant Hungarian who had already had careers as a travel agent and a gold miner, pitched an idea for a ‘telegraph exchange’ to Thomas Edison. The exchange would enable switching between multiple lines, allowing numerous connections to be made among telegraph subscribers in a community. The idea found use, but not in the telegraph: it was perfect for application in Alexander Graham Bell’s new ‘telephone’ system. The first experimental telephone exchange was built in Boston by the Bell company in 1877, and the next year, a commercial exchange was built in nearby Lowell, Massachusetts. These early telephone exchanges were usually named for the town in which they operated; to get connected to a friend, you would tell an operator the name of the exchange where your friend’s phone was connected, then the name of your friend. The operator of your exchange would connect to the other exchange, and the operator of that exchange would connect you to your friend.

Just a year later, in 1879, an epidemic of measles broke out in Lowell. Local doctor Moses Greely Parker, apparently kind of a catastrophic thinker, feared that a bad measles outbreak might wipe out the operators at the popular Lowell telephone exchange, and it would be difficult for replacement operators to be trained on all the names they would need to know to make the connections. He suggested the use of numbers instead of names, and the idea of the ‘telephone number’ was born. In this system, the number of a telephone subscriber- say 252- would always be prefaced by the exchange name. So, ‘Lowell 252’ would become the format for the phone number. For nearly 100 years, phone numbers would follow the ‘exchange-number’ format. Exchange names proliferated beyond place names, as more and more exchanges were built. When making a call, you’d just pick up a phone and tell the operator the exchange and number. (Hence the title of the popular big-band tune ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000’). This is why, when the first dial phones were introduced- like the iconic Western Electric 50AL ‘candlestick’- they had little letters above the numbers: you could dial the first two letters of the exchange- ‘LO’ (aka ‘56’) for LOwell, then the number. Long after the advent of direct dial, people knew their numbers in the exchange-number format: my grandparents’ number in the 1950s was PLeasant 2-2562.

By the 1960s, people stopped using exchange names in phone numbers. Everyone was dialing numbers by this time, and it suddenly seemed easier to skip the ‘exchange’ prefix and just remember the phone number in all-number format. Letters on telephone dials and pads began to seem like a quaint anachronism. (However, no progress goes unchallenged. In 1963 an organization called the Anti Digit Dialing League was formed to combat the pernicious habit of all-digit dialing. They had thousands of members.) In 1967, the toll-free number was introduced, and with it came a new custom: the ‘vanity number’, a custom phone number, requested by the telephone subscriber. Often, vanity numbers tried to spell a word related to a business, using those letters on the dial put there to identify the now-obsolete telephone exchange name. Those old letters had found a new use! ‘Phonewords’ became a craze in the 1980s and 1990s, and many businesses began requesting vanity numbers with built-in phonewords.

The ‘80s and ‘90s were also a boom time for specialty coffee: lots of specialty coffee companies were formed during that time. And, since OBVIOUSLY any brand new specialty coffee company needed to have a cool phoneword-based vanity number, folks were on the lookout for coffee-related four letter words (since phone numbers always end in four digits). The search was on. “Coffee” had too many letters. “Brew” could be beer. What about Java, that old nickname for coffee? ‘JAVA’, aka ‘5282’, was perfect: four letters, a synonym for coffee, kind of exotic, rakish and affable in a jokey-sort-of-serious way. Dozens of specialty coffee companies formed in the 80s and 90s have 5282 in their phone number: Canada’s Colony Coffee and Tea, Olympia’s Batdorf and Bronson, Goleta, California’s Carribean Coffee Company, and my alma mater Counter Culture Coffee in North Carolina are among them. The practice continues to this very day, as companies gleefully request 5282 numbers of their very own. However, the fashion of phonewords has declined somewhat, and companies don’t as often write their number as 1-800-555-JAVA now, preferring the slightly more dignified 1-800-555-5282, and people eventually forget the number-word connection. Do they know that the number has in its history the 17th century spice trade, the rapacious Dutch East India Company, stolen coffee seedlings, enforcement planting, a Hungarian inventor, a measles outbreak, and a paranoid-yet-clever doctor from New England? Does anyone remember that ‘Java’ is an island, and that people used to actually talk to an operator when they needed to make a phone call? Regardless, here is what I will promise you: if you care about coffee, you’ll be seeing the numbers ‘5282’ EVERYWHERE now.

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khalilhumam · 4 years

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Middle East food security amid the COVID-19 pandemic

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/middle-east-food-security-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Middle East food security amid the COVID-19 pandemic

By Omer Karasapan The Global Network Against Food Crisis, an alliance of United Nations and partner agencies, cautioned this year that the COVID- 19 pandemic could lead to 265 million people suffering from “acute food insecurity, which requires urgent food, nutrition, and livelihoods assistance for survival,” that is, a food crisis. That figure is double 2019’s 135 million across 55 countries. Of the latter, 77 million were in conflict-afflicted countries. Climate change and economic shocks impacted another 34 million and 24 million people, respectively. Over half (73 million) lived in Africa, 43 million in the Middle East and Asia, and 18.5 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. So far, the worst has been averted; global cereal stocks are twice as large as they were in the 2007-2008 food crisis, shipping is 20 times cheaper, and oil is below $40. Lessons have been learned from 2007-2008 when food export bans by 33 countries, panic buying, and the rise in energy prices led to sharp increases in grain prices. Some 75 million people were unable to acquire sufficient food and 100 million were pushed into poverty. This time, the G-20 and others made pledges and calls to refrain from such practices. And while 19 countries have curbed exports, those actions have impacted just 5 percent of the world’s traded calories, whereas the 2007-08 bans impacted 19 percent. Nevertheless, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remains one of the areas most vulnerable to a food crisis. MENA countries are among the world’s largest food importers: Most depend on imports for over half their needs. This is also the world’s most water-stressed region with massive subsidies for water and agriculture and a preponderant, if ultimately unsustainable, role for the state as many countries still pursue the chimera of cheap staple foods and self-sufficiency in cereal production rather than local and international market-driven solutions. MENA also faces conflicts in Libya, Syria, and Yemen and sustained political protests in Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon with periodic outbursts in Iran. According to the International Monetary Fund, regional growth will be negative 3 percent in 2020. The sharp drop in oil demand and prices has hit hard oil exporters and those dependent on their largesse. All countries will see a sharp drop in tourism and remittances. Unemployment and poverty numbers will increase. Large countries like Egypt and Iran are buying more wheat as a precaution against social unrest. Morocco will also import more as a drought—presaging more of the same due to climate change—decreases 2020 wheat production by over 50 percent. The issue for the region is not food availability, whose numbers are sufficient and stable since 1999-2001. Access to food is the challenge. In 2019, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization noted that hunger had risen since 2011 due to conflict and protracted crisis. Some 52 million people in the region were chronically undernourished of which 34 million were in conflict-affected countries. The worst afflicted are Syria and Yemen, although Lebanon and Libya also face a crisis in food security. In Yemen, 24 million people—80 percent of the population–require humanitarian assistance while 16 million are acutely food insecure, needing food aid. Famine looms when port operations are disrupted. With funds lacking, the U.N. has cut its rations to 8.5 million northerners by half. In Syria, 9.3 million people—over half the population—are now food insecure, needing food and livelihood assistance. The close links with Lebanon’s battered financial system, new U.S. sanctions, and the pandemic will increase these numbers. The over 6 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey who are dependent on informal employment, often for daily wages, are hard hit by closures and economic downturns. The region’s 11 million internally displaced people—many of whom are concentrated in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen—are among the most vulnerable. In Iraq, the displacement caused by the Islamic State group (ISIS) and its aftermath persists, with food aid a critical need. For the most part, health systems are inadequate to confront the pandemic. Out of the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the 2 million in Gaza, 1.7 million (mostly in Gaza) are food insecure, needing assistance. A further 841,000 are marginally food secure. The pandemic, its closures, and economic slowdown will worsen the situation. Lebanon, facing the biggest economic and political crisis in its history, entered uncharted territory as the prime minister warned of a food crisis. The financial crisis saw a currency depreciation of 80 percent, sharp increases in unemployment and poverty, and complications with food imports, which constitute well over half its food consumption. Lebanon’s World Food Program Director Abdallah Al-Wardat says 1 million Lebanese could drop under the food poverty line in 2020. The Interior Ministry says that 60 percent of the population—2.4 million Lebanese—will drop below the poverty line in 2020. In Libya, the U.N. sees food security compromised by conflict and the pandemic and its socioeconomic impact. Most cities face shortages of basic food items, price increases, and supply chain disruptions. The U.N. calls for continued support to avert a food crisis. Especially vulnerable are Libya’s over 700,000 migrants. Economic migrants are a regional challenge with 35 million just in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Jordan, and Lebanon. Many are unemployed and stranded because flights are banned or unaffordable. Cramped living conditions—an invitation to pandemic outbursts—are a reality for most. Access to food looms as a potential challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has yet to run its course and a vaccination seems at least a year away, not to mention the time to get it to populations across the world. A renewed coronavirus surge in MENA in the summer will further test the resilience of many countries and most will require additional outside support. In the meantime, the U.N. calls on “governments, international development partners, donors and the private sector” to address the “availability, access and affordability of safe and nutritious foods and protect the nutrition of … vulnerable families.” The most immediate measures proposed are ensuring that food supply chains keep moving and foods remain available while protecting the incomes and livelihoods of those dependent on agriculture, casual labor, and the newly jobless. What needs doing is clear, less so is how to move ahead in this era of raging conflict and diminishing resources.

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wsmith215 · 4 years

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Yemen’s Houthis report first coronavirus case, a death in Sanaa hotel

ADEN (Reuters) – Authorities in Houthi-held north Yemen confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus on Tuesday, a Somali national found dead in a Sanaa hotel, while the government in the south of the war-torn nation reported nine new infections.

One of the last countries to declare COVID-19 infections on April 10, Yemen has now reported 21 cases, including 3 deaths, in territory held by the internationally recognised government, and one case, a death, in areas under the Iran-aligned Houthis.

“We received a report about a situation in a hotel (in the capital Sanaa) on Sunday and epidemiological investigation teams went there immediately, where the affected person had died,” Houthi health minister Taha al-Mutawakkil told Al Masirah TV.

The deceased Somali had underlying liver and kidney problems, the minister said, adding that a sample had been tested in a laboratory for COVID-19 infection.

Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, has long been a transit point for migrants and refugees from the Horn of Africa, many of whom are fleeing hunger and violence and trying to reach Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states.

Yemen is already grappling with the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by a war between a Saudi-led coalition seeking to restore the internationally recognised government, and the Houthi movement which drove the government from power in Sanaa in late 2014.

Before the first COVID-19 case in Houthi territory was announced, the United Nations had said it feared the coronavirus could be spreading undetected across the country among an acutely malnourished population with inadequate testing capabilities and protective equipment.

On Tuesday the emergency coronavirus committee belonging to the government – temporarily based in the southern port city of Aden – said that eight new cases had been detected in Aden and another in the Hadhramout region.

The Aden-based emergency coronavirus committee had voiced concern that Houthi officials were not admitting to a coronavirus outbreak in Sanaa.

Story continues

The World Health Organization has said it fears COVID-19 could rip through Yemen as the population has some of the lowest levels of immunity to disease compared with other countries.

Minimal testing capacity has added to concerns. The WHO said on Tuesday just 200 tests for infection with the coronavirus had been carried out and results received across Yemen.

Around 80%, or 24 million people, rely on humanitarian aid and 10 million are at risk of starvation. Disease is rife.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Alaa Swilam, writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Lisa Barrington, editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Heinrich)

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#Coronavirus News

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news4dzhozhar · 7 years

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President Trump and his administration have little to say beyond offering “thoughts and prayers” when white killers strike — even when they are undoubtedly terrorists (e.g., the car-ramming attack on Aug. 12 by a white supremacist in Charlottesville which killed one person and injured 19) and even when they claim dozens of victims (e.g., the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1 which left 58 people dead). But every time a Muslim strikes, the White House predictably claims vindication for its hardline approach to immigration. On Monday, according to police, a 27-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh named Akayed Ullah detonated an explosive device at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, seriously injuring no one but himself. Within hours, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was claiming: “This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reforms that enhance the national security and public safety. We must protect our borders and we must ensure that individuals entering our country are not coming to do harm to people, and we must move to a merit-based immigration system.” It’s true that Ullah was born abroad, but it’s hard to see what his attack has to do with immigration reform, and specifically Trump’s version thereof — any more than did the Halloween car-ramming attack in downtown New York carried out by Uzbekistan native Sayfullo Saipov. There is no evidence that either Ullah or Saipov was an Islamist radical when they came here years ago; if they had been, it’s hard to imagine why they waited so long to strike and, in Ullah’s case, did so in such failed fashion. Neither of their attacks required much planning or preparation, and both were inspired by Islamic State’s online propaganda. Like the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, they were radicalized while living in the United States. In short, it’s hard to see how tougher immigration screening would have helped, unless the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who admitted them were clairvoyant and could foresee that they would become drawn, years into the future, toward radical Islamist ideology. Certainly the various forms of Trump’s Muslim ban would not have prevented these terrorists’ entry into America. Neither Bangladesh nor Uzbekistan nor Kyrgyzstan — the place where the Tsarnaev brothers were born of Chechen ancestry — were included on Trump’s list of forbidden countries. The original executive order, issued Jan. 27, affected Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, even though terrorists from those countries have never actually killed anyone in the United States. After this ban was ruled unconstitutional by various federal judges, the Trump administration was forced to rewrite it. The current version, issued on Sept. 24, stops most citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea from entering the United States and imposes enhanced restrictions on citizens of Iraq and some citizens of Venezuela. The addition of a few non-Muslim countries such as Venezuela and North Korea was window-dressing to deflect criticism that this was a “Muslim ban” even though Trump himself has repeatedly equated his travel order with his original promise for a “Muslim ban.” Last week the Supreme Court allowed the travel order to take effect while legal challenges to it to continue. Whatever form it takes, the travel ban is utterly disconnected from, indeed at odds with, the requirements of counter-terrorism. What the Port Authority attack underscores is that the No. 1 terrorist threat to the homeland comes from people who are radicalized while already living here — whether they are white supremacists or Islamists. Perversely, Trump’s rhetoric — tolerant of white supremacism, intolerant of Islam — helps both groups of extremists. Both “alt-right” leaders like Richard Spencer and David Duke and the leaders of Islamic State have said that Trump is good for recruiting. Just a couple of weeks ago, Trump retweeted anti-Islamic videos — one of them an outright hoax — posted by a British far-right leader. Thus the president of the United States inadvertently furthers the terrorists’ claims that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot live peaceably side by side. Trump has done a good job of beating ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but the more that he gives the impression that America is at war with Islam, the more he risks radicalizing future generations of terrorists both at home and abroad. That’s why both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama were careful to stress that the U.S. isn’t fighting Islam but only a small faction of deluded extremists. Trump thinks such distinctions are “politically correct,” but they are in fact strategically smart. The U.S. already does “extreme vetting” of visitors from abroad, especially visitors from Muslim lands — and that was going on well before Trump became President. It’s a product of 9/11/01, not of 11/08/16. There is no evidence that Trump’s attempts to further tighten border security are actually making us more secure, and there is good cause to fear that his incendiary rhetoric is undermining our security. Instead of blustering on about the problems of immigration and Islam, the president would be better advised to acknowledge that America’s biggest success story is our ability to assimilate immigrants from all over the world. The New York Police Department exemplifies that diversity — its officers hail from 88 different countries, and Muslim officers and analysts are essential to monitoring Muslim terrorist networks. Yet Trump always speaks of the problems, never the promise, of immigration. Rather than falsely claiming vindication from every terrorist attack, the President would be well advised to rethink his entire approach.

#jahar tsarnaev #dzhokhar tsarnaev #tamerlan tsarnaev

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newstfionline · 5 years

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Headlines

Rescuers in Bahamas face a ruined landscape (AP) Rescue crews in the Bahamas fanned out across a blasted landscape of smashed and flooded homes Wednesday, trying to reach drenched and stunned victims of Hurricane Dorian and take the full measure of the disaster. The official death toll stood at seven but was certain to rise. The storm parked over the Bahamas and pounded it for over a day and a half with winds up to 185 mph (295 kph) and torrential rains, swamping neighborhoods in muddy brown floodwaters and destroying or severely damaging thousands of homes.

Pentagon approves diversion of military construction funds for Trump’s wall (Washington Post) Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has agreed to take $3.6 billion that was designated for 127 military construction projects to pay for 175 miles of border wall.

US watchdog: Separated migrant children suffered trauma (AP) Migrant children who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border last year suffered post-traumatic stress and other serious mental health problems, according to a government watchdog report Wednesday. The chaotic reunification process only added to their ordeal.

Guatemala Declares State of Siege After Suspected Drug Dealers Kill Soldiers (Reuters) Guatemala’s government on Wednesday declared a state of siege in five northeastern provinces in an effort to regain control after three soldiers were killed by suspected drug traffickers, authorities said.

Former First Lady of Honduras Sentenced to 58 Years in Jail (Reuters) The former first lady of Honduras Rosa Elena Bonilla, wife of ex-president Porfirio Lobo, was sentenced on Wednesday to 58 years in jail on charges of fraud and undue appropriation of funds, a spokesman for the nation’s highest court said.

Argentine markets hold steady as anti-government protesters take to the streets (Reuters) Argentine markets held steady on Wednesday, even as thousands of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the government of President Mauricio Macri and a darkening economic outlook in the recession-hit South American country.

UK Government Gives Up Trying to Stop Brexit Delay Bill in Parliament (Reuters) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government abandoned attempts in the upper house of parliament to block a law aimed at stopping the country from leaving the European Union without a deal.

Brexit breathes life back into Scottish independence push (AP) When Scotland voted in 2014 against independence, that seemed to settle the issue. But less than two years later came the Brexit referendum, and while the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, Scots distinguished themselves as the biggest dissenters. Not only did Scotland vote overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, it was the only one of the U.K.’s four parts where not a single constituency delivered a “Yes” vote to leave. Simply put: Scotland is being dragged largely unwillingly toward what many of its people fear will be economic suffering on Oct. 31. In the aftermath of Brexit, Scotland could again become a headache for whoever is in power in London.

In Battle for France’s Soul, Maurice the Rooster Scores Victory (Reuters) A French court ruled on Thursday that a rooster called Maurice could continue his dawn crowing despite complaints from neighbors, in a case the French media has cast as a battle between the old rural way of life and modern values creeping in from the city.

Russians consider life after Putin (Foreign Policy) The Moscow city council elections set for Sunday have become an unlikely political lightning rod in Russia, drawing thousands of people to the streets in protest after the election commission banned some opposition candidates from running. While the opposition seems unlikely to be able to send a political message this weekend, the protests show a growing discontent with President Vladimir Putin’s government as his term limit approaches in 2024.

Turkey: Erdogan Rejects Constraints on Nuclear Capabilities (AP) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says it is unacceptable for states with nuclear arms to tell Turkey that it cannot have missiles with nuclear warheads.

Taliban Car Bomb Rocks Afghan Capital Near US Embassy Area (AP) A car bomb rocked the Afghan capital on Thursday and smoke rose from a Kabul neighborhood housing the U.S. Embassy, the NATO Resolute Support mission and other diplomatic missions. At least three people were killed and another 30 wounded, a hospital director said.

Hong Kong leader withdraws China extradition bill that fueled protests (Washington Post) “The government will formally withdraw the bill in order to fully allay public concerns.” So said Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam as she announced plans to “fully withdraw the controversial extradition bill that sparked three months of increasingly fierce protests.” But the scope of the demonstrations have expanded beyond just that issue. So the 14 weeks of protests might just keep on keeping on.

At Least 34 Injured, One Critically, as Truck and Train Collide in Japan (Reuters) At least 34 people were injured, one critically, on Thursday when an express train and truck collided in Japan’s second-largest city of Yokohama, setting the truck on fire and derailing nearly half the train.

‘Any Suggestion?’ Duterte Asks After Xi Reaffirms Sea Claims (AP) The Philippine president has acknowledged he’s short of solutions to press China to adhere to Manila’s arbitration victory in their South China Sea disputes after he said Chinese President Xi Jinping told him flatly: “We will not budge.”

Saudi troop levels in Yemen (Foreign Policy) Saudi Arabia has increased the number of troops on the ground in southern Yemen as the conflict continues between separatists and pro-government forces--technically allies in the Saudi-led coalition. The separatists, supported by the United Arab Emirates, took control of the port of Aden early last month.

Xenophobia in South Africa (Foreign Policy) More than 80 people have been arrested in South Africa amid anti-immigrant rioting in Johannesburg and Pretoria. The riots have targeted foreign businesses and have heightened tensions between South Africa and Nigeria in particular. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a special envoy to meet with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to address Nigerians’ safety in the country. It is the latest wave of xenophobia in South Africa, where immigrants from other African countries have long been the targets of brutal violence.

#headlines

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upshotre · 5 years

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Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Deadly Attack in Yemen’s Aden

The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack that targeted a police station in Yemen’s southern city of Aden. The suicide car bombing left at least 60 dead or injured, Islamic State said in an online statement. The bombing was one of Thursday’s twin attacks targeting security facilities in Aden, the temporary seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government. The other was a missile attack by Yemen’s Iran-linked Houthi rebels on a military camp in which more than 30 people were killed . A witness saw nine bodies on the ground at the camp belonging to the Yemeni Security Belt forces backed by the United Arab Emirates, which is a member of the Saudi-led military coalition battling the Houthis. The attack killed at least 32 people, including a commander, a medical and a security source said. Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Yemen, in separate tweets, accused Iran of being behind the attack claimed by the Houthis. They also blamed Iran for a blast at a police station in the southern port city that security sources said involved an explosives-laden car. No one has claimed responsibility for the latter attack, which NGO Doctors Without Borders said killed 10 people. Past car attacks in Yemen have been carried out by Islamist militant group al Qaeda, one of Yemen’s many destabilising forces. The Saudi envoy, Mohammed bin Saeed Al Jabir, said the attacks indicate that Iran “shares common goals with fellow terrorists such as Daesh (a term used to refer to the Islamic State group) and al Qaeda”. Shiite Muslim Iran denies having any involvement in Yemen, where the Saudi-led Sunni Muslim coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014. The Houthi’s official channel Al Masirah TV said the group had launched a medium-range ballistic missile and an armed drone at the parade, which it described as being staged in preparation for a military move against provinces held by the movement. The commander killed at the parade was Brigadier General Muneer al-Yafee, a leading southern separatist figure, a government military source and security sources said. Yafee had stepped off the stage to greet a guest when the explosion took place. Flags of the former South Yemen and those of the coalition fluttered as the military band was waiting for its cue to start playing. “The blast occurred behind the stand where the ceremony was taking place at Al Jalaa military camp in Buraiqa district in Aden,” the Reuters witness said. “A group of soldiers were crying over a body believed to be of the commander.” The Houthi military spokesman said the parade “was being used to prepare for an advance” on Taiz and Dalea provinces. The government of Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi controls Aden. The Houthi movement, which denies being a puppet of Iran and says its revolution is against corruption, holds Sanaa and most of the biggest urban centres in the Arabian Peninsula nation. The Western-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE has come under international pressure to end the war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. The more than four-year conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Last month the UAE said it was scaling down its military presence in areas including Aden and the western coast, but that this would not leave a vacuum as it had trained 90,000 Yemeni forces from among southern separatists and coastal plains fighters. The Houthis have stepped up cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities and the coalition has responded with air strikes on Houthi military sites, mostly around Sanaa. Al Masirah said the Houthis launched a long-range ballistic missile on a military site in Dammam in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on Thursday. There was no immediate confirmation from the coalition or Saudi authorities. The escalating violence could complicate UN-led efforts to implement a troop withdrawal in the main porty city of Hodeidah to pave the way for political talks to end the war amid mistrust among parties and competing agendas of Yemen’s fractious groups. Read the full article

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years

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Navy sends nuclear submarine to Gulf after Iran seizes British oil tanker | World | News

As tensions rose in the region, sources stressed that the Astute-class submarine would perform a purely defensive role, using its sophisticated covert electronic intelligence gathering equipment to safeguard British and international shipping. On Saturday Iran increased its provocation by publishing images of the Iranian National Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force abseiling from helicopters to board the tanker. It is a mirror of images released two weeks ago by Britain showing Royal Marines descending on Grace 1, an Iranian tanker suspected of carrying oil to Syria.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said UK vessels “must and will be protected”. During an emergency call with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Mr Hunt said he “expressed extreme disappointment that having assured me last Saturday Iran wanted to de-escalate the situation they have behaved in the opposite way”.

He added: “This has to be about actions, not words, if we are to find a way through. British shipping must and will be protected.”

The 7,400-ton submarine, one of Britain’s newest, will be able to plot movements and voice transmissions from 200 miles away.

Its electronic warfare suite can intercept and download all conversations with specialist linguists onboard. They can evaluate the transmission and report back to naval headquarters, Sources say it will focus its attention on the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and the flotilla of so-called midget submarines which pose an increasing threat to international shipping along the Strait of Hormuz.

“We are sending a boat – it may well already be heading for the region,’ said a senior Royal Navy source last night.

“Its role is a covert intelligence posture, simply gathering information to support the planned escort convoys of tankers.

“The Astute-class commands a significant electronic warfare capability and does not actually need to be sat in the Gulf to be effective.”

Ambush, the second of the Royal Navy’s potent new Astute Class attack submarines (Image: Royal Navy)

Last night Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt confirmed that a Royal Navy frigate was just an hour away when Iranian forces took control of the British-flagged Stena Impero in what she described as a “hostile act”. Mr Hunt rejected claims by Tehran that it had performed a “tit-for-tat” act to the British impounding of the Grace 1 supertanker.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. Grace 1 was detained legally in Gibraltarian waters because it was carrying oil against EU sanctions to Syria,” said Hunt.

“The Stena Impero was seized in Omani waters in clear contravention of international law. It was then forced to sail into Iran. This is totally and utterly unacceptable.”

The flare-up comes just a week since Mr Hunt attempted to increase support for the Iran nuclear deal, which saw Tehran earn more than £100billion for promises not to develop nuclear weapons, and which has been on the verge of collapse since the US withdrew support. Senior shipping sources rejected Iranian claims that the Stena Impero which, it has now emerged was carrying no oil, had collided with a fishing boat and had been seized as part of an investigation.

“There is absolutely no credible evidence to support these claims, just as Iran’s earlier position that the vessel had been in Iranian waters bears no link to reality,” said the source.

Last night, former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said the time had come for multinational convoys to protect shipping through the region.

Britain has already increased its maritime presence. HMS Kent, a Type 23 Duke class frigate, will sail from Portsmouth in early September boosting the UK Royal Navy force to nine.

HMS Montrose is off to the Gulf (Image: AFP/Getty Images)

The Navy support ship RFA Wave Knight last night arrived off Gibraltar, en route to join HMS Montrose and a squadron of mine clearance vessels also heading for the Gulf.

And four Royal Navy mine hunters, already in the Gulf on a three-year deployment, have now been further tasked with escort duties.

On Friday intelligence intercepts picked up orders by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders to increase heavy artillery within shelling range of the Stena Impero, and construct a new “holding centre”, sources said last night.

Iran is thought to have 2,000 fast attack craft. But it is midget submarines that are the biggest threat, said former Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe.

“The Yono midget submarine is a particular menace. Often lurking just below the surface in the middle of the traffic separation system [a maritime traffic-management route-system] they are armed with a couple of heavyweight torpedoes,” said Commander Sharpe.

“These will kill a frigate and possibly even a carrier. There are always a couple at sea and they are hard to track and even harder to defeat.”

Last night former international development secretary Priti Patel said that British attempts had failed to deliver a hoped-for normalisation of diplomatic relations, adding: “We are being played.”

Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt (Image: David Mirzoeff/PA Wire)

Ms Patel, now a member of the foreign affairs select committee, said: “The level of hostility that we’ve been seeing from the Iranian regime over a period of time should concern us.

“Despite efforts by Britain there is normalisation whatsoever. These are the techniques and tactics that have been associated with the Iranian regime for decades. “We are seeing the essential international rules-based system jeopardised. We are being played.

“While our response must be measured, it is surely time to have more uncomfortable discussions about where we go from here.”

James Rogers at the Henry Jackson Society, which is a British foreign policy think tank, said: “Britain has aligned itself with the EU on the nuclear deal and Iran.

“We are trying to chart a course between the EU line and placate the US at the same time. But Iran is trying to push us off this tightrope and, largely, they are succeeding.

“The timing for these acts is significant. The UK appears weak because of domestic issues; there will shortly be a new Government, and the current one is about to leave.”

He added: “The issue now is whether the EU framework for dealing with Iran is the right one that will work. These latest actions are clear evidence that it’s not working.

“Allowing it to be targeted without responding merely compounds our weakness and compounds that perception around the world.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (Image: Aaron Chown/PA Wire)

“Our next government must reconsider its position.We need to free the tanker, prevent additional vessels being taken or derailed from their journey and this requires larger presence from Royal Navy and potentially the use of convoys. This is about freedom of navigation.”

COMMENT BY TOM TUGENDHAT MP

We must stand up to this bully

For 200 years the Royal Navy kept sea lanes open.We guaranteed trade could pass safely through straits like those at the opening of the Persian Gulf.

We stationed ships not just for ourselves but to see international trade flourish.We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

Today’s commercial shipping carries goods around the world at prices lower than any time in history.We have enabled a global economy. But today it is under threat.

The seizing of a British ship by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a reminder that rules are always tested by those who think they can break them.

Like bullies everywhere, they are encouraged by weakness and sense it in the West today.

Footage of Iranian commandos storming the seized vessel (Image: NC)

They are testing us and we must not be found wanting.

Our resolve, and that of our allies, must be strong against a group that has spread death to Syria and Israel, corrupted and undermined efforts for peace in Iraq and Yemen, and is trying to export violent Islamic revolution around the region.

That means working together.We need to stand with our allies and not give our enemies any reason to doubt our commitment to each other and the international rules we built together.

Of course that means the United States, but much more than that, today it means India and China.

More of the energy shipped through the Straits of Hormuz heads east than west as those growing economies depend on foreign reserves so they too should play their part in defending the supply routes.

If we don’t have the rule of law we will be reduced to the rule of force and, as we have learned over centuries, that would see us all lose.

Today, more than ever, we need to make sure politics isn’t just a history lesson for slow learners.

Tom Tugendhat MP is Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years