Category Archives: News

Even if your data is secure, your phone could set your head on fire

SF Gate reports: There is a chance your cell phone could set your head on fire, according to science (and the New York Police Department).

Depending on how intimate you are with your phone, those who charge their smartphones under their pillow while they sleep could find themselves fanning out the flames of their smothered device.

In an ominous and unexplained public service announcement, the 33rd Precinct in New York’s Washington Heights sent out the following tweet Monday: [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

God is quitting Twitter

Quartz reports: Fed up with the limits of the medium and the number of trolls He hath created, God is quitting Twitter.

More accurately, the man behind the popular (2.29 million followers) account @TheTweetOfGod has issued one final missive.

Former Daily Show with Jon Stewart writer David Javerbaum created a Twitter handle for God in 2010. Since then, the fictional Lord has tweeted acidly about soccer, the Westboro Baptist Church, and how He’s eventually going to kill us all. The tweets inspired a book and a Broadway play, An Act of God, that just started a second run in Los Angeles. He follows exactly one person: Justin Bieber.

Javerbaum’s God was a left-leaning misanthrope skeptical about His own existence and more than a little disappointed in how this whole humanity project turned out. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The war of Western failures: Hopes for Syria fall with Aleppo

Der Spiegel reports: Aleppo has been a horrific place for some time now and few thought that it could get much worse. But things can always get worse — that’s the lesson currently being learned by those who have stayed behind in an effort to outlast this brutal conflict. People who have become used to dead bodies in the streets, hunger and living a life that can end at any moment.

“For the last two weeks, we’ve been living a nightmare that is worse than everything that has come before,” says Hamza, a young doctor in an Aleppo hospital. At the beginning, in 2011, he was treating light wounds, stemming from tear gas or beatings from police batons. When the regime began dropping barrel bombs in 2012, the injuries got worse. But now, with the beginning of the Russian airstrikes, the doctors are facing an emergency. Every two or three hours, warplanes attack the city, aiming at everything that hasn’t yet been destroyed, including apartment buildings, schools and clinics. Often, they use cluster bombs, which have been banned internationally.

They used to get around 10 serious injuries per day, but that number has now risen to 50, says Hamza, adding that most of their time is spent sorting body parts so they can turn them over to family members for burial. Russian missiles, he says, tear everyone apart who is within 35 meters of the impact.

“On one day, we had 22 dead civilians. The day before that, it was 20 injured children. A seven-year-old died and an eight-year-old lost his left leg.” The Russians attacked in the morning, he says, as the children were on their way to school. “We are going to need years of therapy in order to be able to cope with all this.”

There are seven doctors still working in the hospital. “Since the Russians began bombing the city, even more doctors have fled,” Hamza says. There are only about 30 medical professionals left in all of Aleppo, he adds. His hospital too is under fire and Hamza’s voice can be heard trembling over the phone. The regime, he says, has targeted the hospital five times in the past several years, but always missed. “The Russian bombardment, though, is very accurate.” One recent bomb, he says, just barely missed them. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

A Syria policy that dare not speak its name

Syria5

Michael Ignatieff writes: Once President Barack Obama had let Bashar al-Assad cross his “red line” and use chemical weapons in 2013, America was left with a policy in Syria that dare not speak its name.

The policy is not what the US wants but, in light of the ceasefire plan agreed last week in Munich between Moscow and Washington, it appears to have become what it reluctantly accepts: to allow Mr Assad and Russian president Vladimir Putin to win by focusing attacks on anti-regime rebels in strongholds such as Aleppo — and then, after a decent interval, to join with them to crush the militants of Isis.

The consequences of this policy are becoming clearer by the day: free Aleppo is dying under continuing Russian bombardment and a civilian uprising that began in 2011 is collapsing for want of help. Mr Assad is re-establishing his tyranny and is certain to take vengeance on surviving insurgents.

This is where risk avoidance has led a conscientious, prudent American president — to a diabolical transaction in which he and his allies regretfully sacrifice the lives of innocent civilians in the name of the mistaken belief that the west’s only overriding strategic interest in Syria is the defeat of Isis.

If this is the actual policy of the US the consequences should be spelt out. Russia and Iran will consolidate control of a rump state in the Middle East but the millions of Syrians who have fled the fighting will never return home and the region will never know peace. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syria’s UN envoy claims MSF hospital was front for French intelligence and got bombed by the U.S.

AFP reports: Syria’s U.N. envoy on Tuesday accused the medical aid charity MSF of being a front for French intelligence in Syria and dismissed allegations that Russian air strikes had destroyed one of its hospitals.

“The so-called hospital was installed without any prior consultation with the Syrian government by the so-called French network called MSF which is a branch of the French intelligence operating in Syria,” said Ambassador Bashar Jaafari.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said at least 11 people were killed after the hospital in Idlib province was destroyed on Monday morning, but it did not assign blame for the attack.

“They assume the full consequences of the act because they did not consult with the Syrian government,” Jaafari told reporters.

“They did not operate with the Syrian government permission.”

He repeated Syrian claims that the U.S.-led coalition had carried out the air strikes that hit the MSF-backed hospital. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Spring could bring a fresh surge of refugees — but Europe isn’t ready for them

refugees1

The Washington Post reports: After an unparalleled tide of asylum seekers washed onto European shores last summer and fall, the continent’s leaders vowed to use the relative calm of winter to bring order to a process marked by chaos.

But with only weeks to go before more favorable spring currents are expected to trigger a fresh surge of arrivals, the continent is no better prepared. And in critical respects, the situation is even worse.

Ideas that were touted as answers to the crisis last year have failed or remain stuck in limbo. Continental unity lies in tatters, with countries striking out to forge their own solutions — often involving a razor-wire fence. And even the nations that have been the most welcoming toward refugees say they are desperately close to their breaking point or already well past it.

The result, analysts say, is a continent fundamentally unequipped to handle the predictable resurgence of a crisis that is greater than any Europe has faced in its post-Cold War history. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Assad preparing to handover Syria’s energy sector to Russia

The New Arab reports: The regime of Bashar al-Assad is reportedly seeking to rehabilitate and operate oil fields and power plants in areas controlled currently by the rebels and the Islamic State group respectively — areas that the regime forces began recapturing in northern and Western Syria backed by Russian airstrikes.

Measures are already in place by the Syrian regime to hand over the Syrian energy sector to Russian companies, led by a law on partnership between the private sector and foreign companies issued in early 2016.

Last month as well, Russian press reports said Bashar al-Assad, during a recent visit to Moscow, signed an agreement consisting of ten clauses purportedly giving Russia the right to freely operate in Syria, which cannot be revoked except by written agreement.

In the same vein, a recent report published by Russia’s RIA agency said Syria’s ambassador to Moscow, Riad Haddad, had met with the chairman of Russian gas company Gazprom Alexei Miller, and discussed giving Russian energy firms oil and gas concessions in Syria and other forms of cooperation. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Apple encryption case risks influencing Russia and China, privacy experts say

The Guardian reports: Authoritarian governments including Russia and China will demand greater access to mobile data should Apple lose a watershed encryption case brought by the FBI, leading technology analysts, privacy experts and legislators have warned.

Apple’s decision to resist a court order to unlock a password-protected iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino killers has created a worldwide privacy shockwave, with campaigners around the world expecting the struggle to carry major implications for the future of mobile and internet security. They warned that Barack Obama’s criticism of a similar Chinese measure last year now risked ringing hollow.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a leading legislator on privacy and tech issues, warned the FBI to step back from the brink or risk setting a precedent for authoritarian countries.

“This move by the FBI could snowball around the world. Why in the world would our government want to give repressive regimes in Russia and China a blueprint for forcing American companies to create a backdoor?” Wyden told the Guardian.

“Companies should comply with warrants to the extent they are able to do so, but no company should be forced to deliberately weaken its products. In the long run, the real losers will be Americans’ online safety and security.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The more Donald Trump defies his party, the more his supporters cheer

The New York Times reports: Mark Jebens, a veteran of 22 years in the Marine Corps, found no fault with Donald J. Trump’s scathing criticism that President George W. Bush “lied” about weapons of mass destruction while leading the United States into war in Iraq.

“At the end of the day, a lot of good Marines and sailors and airmen died over something that wasn’t there,” said Mr. Jebens, who served three combat tours in Iraq. “So you’ve got to ask tough critical questions. In the military we called it a debrief or a hot wash.”

Mr. Trump’s hot wash of Mr. Bush in a debate on Saturday, including a suggestion that he did not heed intelligence warnings before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, convinced many Republicans that Mr. Trump had finally gone too far, tarring a former president who is popular in military-friendly South Carolina, and uttering charges that Rush Limbaugh, for one, called “liberal Democrat lingo.”

But numerous military veterans interviewed at Trump rallies in South Carolina this week, including Mr. Jebens, said they had no problem with Mr. Trump’s comments, even if they did not entirely agree with him. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Will Merkel pay for doing the right thing?

Merkel

Roger Cohen writes: A former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, recently called Angela Merkel’s decision to open the door to an unlimited number of refugees a “mistake” and offered this verdict: Merkel had a “heart, but no plan.”

This view of the German leader, who is beloved but now begrudged, is gaining ground as refugees from a ravaged Syria and elsewhere pour in. Local authorities are strained to the limit. Billions of euros have been spent with no end in sight. Many people came in whose identities are unknown; they have to register if they want handouts, but some have not and there are security concerns. Cologne has become a byword for concern over how a large influx of Muslim men will affect the place and security of women in German society.

Three important state elections loom next month. It seems inevitable the far-right Alternative for Germany Party will surge. Merkel will be blamed. Her support has already tumbled. One poll this month showed 46 percent of Germans support her, compared with 75 percent in April last year — and that’s with a strong economy. She could be vulnerable if her Christian Democratic Party turns on her. Europe without Merkel will sink.

So why did this customarily prudent chancellor do it? Because she is a German, and to be German is to carry a special responsibility for those terrorized in their homeland and forced into flight. Because she once lived in a country, East Germany, that shot people who tried to cross its border. Because a united Europe ushered Germany from its darkest hour to prosperity, and she is not about to let the European Union pitch into mayhem on her watch — as it would with more than a million ragged refugees adrift. And, yes, because she has a heart.

Merkel did the right thing. The question now is how she handles the consequences. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

To be a refugee is much harder for a woman than for a man

Renate van der Zee reports from the transit camp of Vinojug on the Macedonian-Greek border: In the camp’s supposedly “child-friendly” space, 25-year-old Nameen, from Homs, is nursing her tiny baby daughter. She went into labour as she was travelling through Turkey. “Fortunately they could get me to the hospital in time. The delivery went well,” she says with a faint trace of a smile.

Nameen stayed in the hospital for two days, rested for another 10 days in Turkey, and then crossed the Mediterranean in a dinghy with her baby in her arms.

“All I could think of was my girl, I was so scared she would drown or get ill. It was so cold. I am still worried for her safety, day and night.”

The other women in Vinojug agree: to be a refugee is much harder for a woman than for a man.

Amnesty International and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recently presented reports on the vulnerable position of women refugees and the dangers they face.

Europe is failing to provide basic protection for them, the Amnesty report stated.

This problem is now all the more critical because the percentage of women among the refugees who travel through Europe has risen dramatically. Exact data is not available, but according to UNHCR, last summer, a quarter of the refugees were women and children – now it is 55 percent. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russian airstrikes targeted hospitals: ‘The planes returned several times,’ says eyewitness

msf-hospital

Syria Direct reports: Reported Russian airstrikes knocked three hospitals in northern Syria out of service on Monday, depriving more than 5,000 patients a month of care ahead of the deadline for a “cessation of hostilities” deal worked out between major powers at last week’s annual Munich Security.

The ceasefire, notably, excludes the Islamic State in addition to Jabhat a-Nusra, one of the lead factions in the Victory Army that controls nearly all of Idlib province.

Two hospitals, one belonging to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), were bombed in Idlib province on Monday. A third, a women and children’s hospital in the city of Azaz near the Turkish border, was also hit.

The National Hospital, also in Maarat al-Nuaman, was bombed shortly after the strikes on the MSF facility, Amjed al-Idlibi, a first responder with the Civil Defense who worked to extract the dead and wounded, told Syria Direct Tuesday.

“Both hospitals were hit directly…the planes returned several times to conduct air raids, with roughly 10 minutes between each raid,” said al-Idlibi. He said that the planes were Russian. [Continue reading…]

Meanwhile, Russia’s TASS reports: The Kremlin has dismissed as unacceptable the allegations the Russian air group in Syria has destroyed a hospital in Syria.

“We are strongly against such claims, the more so, since each time those who come up with such charges prove unable to somehow confirm their groundless accusations,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Asked for a comment regarding reports a hospital in Syria’s Idlib province had been bombed, as well as claims the Russian air group was responsible, Peskov invited everybody to rely “on the root source first and foremost.” “In this particular case the representatives of Syrian authorities are the root source,” he said.

Peskov recalled that Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riyadh Haddad, said on Tuesday the hospital in Idlib province was destroyed by the Americans, and not the Russian air group. [Continue reading…]

Note the reasoning of the propagandists: The allegations that the airstrikes on hospitals were carried out by Russia are firstly dismissed as “groundless accusations” and secondly dismissed by repeating a groundless accusation made by Syria’s ambassador to Russia — that these were U.S. airstrikes.

Unfortunately, there exists an uncritical audience all too willing to swallow this kind of shameless lying and tortured reasoning.

Facebooktwittermail

‘Unprecedented increase in the number of attacks on healthcare’ in Syria, say aid groups

BuzzFeed reports: Monday marked an “unprecedented” surge in attacks on health facilities in Syria, according to an internal report by affiliates of the World Health Organization that was rushed out to take the toll of the damage.

The report, compiled by the consortium of medical facilities the WHO oversees in the country and provided exclusively to BuzzFeed News, documents a series of what appeared to be targeted bombings of hospitals and other health facilities in Syria. The attacks — which local doctors and international observers alike blamed on Syrian and Russian missiles — killed patients and medical staff at seven different medical sites, the report said, adding that Monday marked “an unprecedented increase in the number of attacks on healthcare in one single day.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Kurds carve out new reality in northern Syria

The Guardian reports: Amid the chaos in northern Syria in recent months, several themes have emerged.

The first is that Islamic State has been spared from intensified Russian airstrikes and advances by pro-regime forces. The second, and potentially more important development, is that one of the war’s least visible players – the Kurds – have done more than anyone else to carve out a new reality.

As Lebanese Hezbollah, militias from Iraq, and Syrian troops – all led by Iran – have inched their way around the top of Aleppo, the Kurdish YPG, supported by Russian air cover, has been making strident moves towards areas they have avoided throughout the conflict.

Over the weekend, the YPG moved towards two Syrian towns between the Turkish border and the almost besieged Aleppo, after earlier seizing an airbase that had been held by the opposition. Throughout the war, the YPG had been viewed warily by the opposition, and given a wide berth by the regime.

Now, though, its moves have sharply expanded a footprint in the north, alarming rebels who have been distracted by other foes, and Turkey, which had vowed never to let the Kurds dominate its border with Syria.

The Kurds are ascendant, and the Turks are enraged. Ankara sees YPG militants, who are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), as vying to own areas they have never before controlled, to establish a foothold from Irfin in Syria’s north-west to the Iraqi border, a frontier dominated for decades by Arabs.

Helping the YPG do that are the same Russian jets that are steadily destroying Turkish-supported rebel groups, whose three-year push to oust Bashar al-Assad increasingly looks lost. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russia uses world war threat to dictate Syria policy, says Turkish PM

Hurriyet Daily News reports: Russia is deliberately using the threat of a possible world war in order to dictate its policy in Syria, according to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.

“Russia is consciously engaging in a perception operation to suggest ‘there could be a world war.’ By keeping this on the agenda, Russia continues to bother the world and dictate its policy,” Davutoğlu said Feb. 15 en route to Kyiv for a one-day visit.

“We should not be tricked with this perception operation,” he added.

Davutoğlu was referring to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s words in Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper on Feb. 11 that “world war” was possible if international powers failed to negotiate an end to the conflict in Syria. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Turkey to hold back on Syria ground offensive

The New Arab reports: Turkey has said it will only commit forces to a ground operations in Syria if its allies – including the US – back the offensive with troops.

A senior Turkish official told reporters that Ankara has asked its partners to intervene in Syria’s war, but his country will not take any action alone.

“We want a ground operation with our international allies,” the official told reporters in Istanbul on Tuesday.

“There is not going to be a unilateral military operation from Turkey to Syria… [but] without a ground operation it is impossible to stop the fighting in Syria. We are asking the coalition partners that there should be a ground operation.”

It comes as speculation mounts about possible Turkish intervention in Syria’s war to prevent Kurdish forces estabishing a mini-state on its borders and protect Syrian rebel forces from losing further ground. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Putin’s reward for doing a deal with OPEC overshadowed by risks

Bloomberg reports: Neither a recession nor a collapse in revenue has yet been enough to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that it’s time to join with OPEC and cut oil output to boost prices. His reasons may be pragmatic rather than political.

Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Saudi Arabian, Venezuelan and Qatari counterparts agreed to freeze output at January levels on Tuesday. The world’s second-largest crude producer faces numerous obstacles to any deal that would actually cut production, even if Putin decides it’s in the national interest. Reducing the flow of crude might damage Russia’s fields and pipelines, require expensive new storage tanks or simply take too long.

In Siberia, Russia’s main oil province, winter temperatures can go below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That’s a challenge for anyone thinking of turning off the taps.

The oil and gas that flows from wells always contains water, so once pumping stops, pipes may freeze, Mikhail Pshenitsyn, who has worked for more than 10 years in the Russian oil industry, said by e-mail. The problem goes away in summer, but there’s still the risk of a long-term reduction in output because a halted reservoir can become polluted with salts and residues, he said.

Production from a shut-in well might never be restored in full, Maxim Nechaev, director for Russia at consulting firm IHS Inc., said by phone. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How Scalia’s death might help our planet

Eric Holthaus writes: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death at a remote Texas ranch has triggered a political earthquake and instantly changes the outlook for a host of high-profile issues the court is currently considering. But perhaps none of these are as consequential as the fate of the planet itself. As Climate Central’s John Upton wrote, “in dying, Scalia may have done more to support global climate action than most people will do in their lifetimes.”

Scalia’s death comes just days after the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented stay that temporarily blocked the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s centerpiece climate legislation. The Clean Power Plan isn’t perfect, but it was on pace to double the already accelerating rate of coal-fired power plant retirements by 2040. Last week’s surprising action by the Supreme Court — dubbed a “nightmare scenario” by the Hill — raised substantial fears among environmentalists that the court’s conservatives might eventually block the Clean Power Plan completely. At the very least, the stay buys some time for Republican hopefuls in this year’s presidential election; if one were to win, he could just cancel the executive order that launched the plan in the first place.

The stay is still in place, but the climate law experts I talked to say Scalia’s death greatly boosts the eventual survival chances of the Clean Power Plan. A 4-4 court would guarantee that the lower court ruling would stand—and the D.C. Circuit Court is expected to approve the plan. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail