Read more on POPSCI.
Tuesday 31 July 2012
China needs an icebreaker?
Read more on POPSCI.
Arafats widow asks French for investigation
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| Suha the widow of Yasser Arafat |
Yasser Arafats widow has filed a complaint asking French prosecutors to investigate the death of her husband amid fresh evidence that Yasser was poisoned.
Read more on the WALL STREET JOURNAL.
U.S. Defence Chief talks Syria
The U.S. defence secretary Leon Panetta has said that the Syrian military must remain intact when Syria's president Bashar al-Assad departs. Meanwhile the Russian Communist Party's leader has accused the West of double standards. Syria appears to be the piggy in the middle as the moral tug of war continues.
SYRIA LATEST NEWS
Syria's UK envoy defects
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| Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov |
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| U.S defence secretary Leon Panetta |
SYRIA LATEST NEWS
Syria's UK envoy defects
The Daily Mail
Russia changes Syria's status to "emergency"
Xinhua NEWS
UK to increase 'practical help' to Syrian opposition
BBC
Russia changes Syria's status to "emergency"
Xinhua NEWS
UK to increase 'practical help' to Syrian opposition
BBC
Monday 30 July 2012
Bloomberg on the naughty step..
Read more on CNN.
News trickery and blurring the lines...
As the battle for Aleppo in Syria continues the world's media participates with an agenda. As someone who has expressed support and hope for the Syrians I find it extremely disheartening when news like below emerges. The lack of reporting on such examples in the West, having just had the Leveson inquiry is worrying.
Read more on GIZMODO.
'British-born jihadists fighting Assad in Syria'
Russia Today
Sunday 29 July 2012
Russian Navy Baseless..
Russia is denying claims that she is planning to set up her first navy bases overseas since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia currently only has navy bases in Ukraine and Syria.
Read more on the BBC.
LATEST NEWS
Russia to significantly boost nuclear fleet
Russia Today
Don't want to discuss your genius plan to become a billionaire using facebook chat? Planning to overthrow your government?
"Cryptocat is an encrypted web-based chat. It’s the first chat client in the browser to allow anyone to use end-to-end encryption to communicate without the problems of SSL, the standard way browsers do crypto, or mucking about with downloading and installing other software. For Kobeissi, that means non-technical people anywhere in the world can talk without fear of online snooping from corporations, criminals or governments." When using Cryptocat there's the option to invite friends from Facebook.
Read more on WIRED.
Saturday 28 July 2012
Putin's Becket?
According to a report in the Russian media, confirmed by Mr Navalny’s lawyers, Russia’s Investigative Committee will formally issue charges of extortion to Mr Navalny on Monday. The likely charges relate to claims that Mr Navalny acted inappropriately while acting as a consultant for the governor of a Russian region several years ago."
Read more on the Independent.
LATEST NEWS
Navalny charged with embezzlement, released with travel ban
Russia Today
Russian Prosecutors Indict Anticorruption Activist
The New York Times
Russian protest leader Navalny faces new probe
Centre Daily Times
Putin opponent could face 10 years in jail
The Daily Mail
Chinese attack helicopter violations...
The Chinese Z-10 attack helicopter has developed into one of the most capable in the world.
The Chinese regime is well known to be one of the largest culprits of industrial espionage and military tech reverse engineering.
The Z-10's development has come under heavy criticism as it emerged that a U.S company United Technologies supplied China with some key components that were needed to build such an effective bird of prey.
United Technologies has accepted responsibility for the violations and agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S government as compensation.
The Chinese government insisted that the Z-10's development relied entirely on indigenous know-how.
Read more on the TRIBUNE.
Friday 27 July 2012
Hong Kong students to read pro-Beijing propaganda
"For parents and teachers, though, the fear is not too much study but too much propaganda. Critics have said the new course will indoctrinate students into the political ideas of the Chinese Communist Party, which the city has spent more than six decades trying to keep out."
Read more on the Independent.
"But fears were stoked again when a teaching booklet called The China Model was published and distributed to schools by a government-funded, pro-Beijing organization. The booklet calls China’s ruling group “progressive, selfless and united” and criticizes the U.S.’s political system as being detrimental for public good. The text says that in the U.S., “often because of the two parties’ campaigning needs or arguments, annual fiscal plans fail to get passed, and the government shuts down and public services stop, directly affecting the public’s everyday functioning.” In short, the booklet disparages democracy."
Read more on TIME.
LATEST NEWS
Thousands in Hong Kong Protest Patriotism Classes
THE WALL STEET JOURNAL
"But fears were stoked again when a teaching booklet called The China Model was published and distributed to schools by a government-funded, pro-Beijing organization. The booklet calls China’s ruling group “progressive, selfless and united” and criticizes the U.S.’s political system as being detrimental for public good. The text says that in the U.S., “often because of the two parties’ campaigning needs or arguments, annual fiscal plans fail to get passed, and the government shuts down and public services stop, directly affecting the public’s everyday functioning.” In short, the booklet disparages democracy."
Read more on TIME.
LATEST NEWS
Thousands in Hong Kong Protest Patriotism Classes
THE WALL STEET JOURNAL
Russia and Syria's Assad
Read more on TIME.
Thursday 26 July 2012
Russia changing their game..
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| Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Larov |
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Larov has said that Russia is ready to contribute to the UN observer mission in Syria. In what appears to be a confirmation of change in attitude towards the Syrian civil war.
“In this case we will be ready to dispatch 30 [Russian] military observers to this mission," Russia's FM revealed.
Read more on Russia Today.
LATEST NEWS
Assad's tanks roll in as Russians warn of tragedy
The Independent
HMRC's Equilibrium...
Children at UK schools are being encouraged to tell teachers if they know of anyone in their local area who isn't paying tax. A move that resembles the fascist movie 'Equilibrium' where children among others are used as state spies and enforcers.
Read more on the Telegraph.
Watch a clip from the movie Equilibrium below..
Boss of bosses..Italy mafia trial
"Marcello dell'Utri, Minister of Defence in Silvio Berlusconi's first government and co-founder with the media magnate of his first political party, Forza Italia. Despite winning a recent legal victory against Mafia association charges, a disturbing new wrinkle was added to Mr dell'Utri's CV last month when he went on trial accused of having extorted huge sums from Mr Berlusconi as the price of silence about the latter's claimed Mafia links. Mr dell'Utri denies the charges. Magistrates questioned Marina Berlusconi, the former premier's daughter, who is not suspected of any wrongdoing and spoke to them "as a victim and as a person with knowledge of the facts", according to the Berlusconi family lawyer Niccolo Ghedini."
Read more on the Independent.
Chinese democracy in labour..
Read more on the BBC.
Wednesday 25 July 2012
Russia stockpiling drones...
"With a new fleet of drones, flying robots will be the new Russian spies and in case you're wondering if the Russians are particularly concerned about privacy, think again. According to Shinkevich, "the secrets of our private lives have become a thing of the past." And that's another thing which the two old superpowers can agree on."
Read more on CNN.
Weapons revoked
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| The ACR rifle |
The Aurora shooting occurred just days before the anniversary of the Utoya massacre in which Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway. Both attacks have encouraged the awareness of the accessibility to small arms and the damage they can do in the wrong hands. Coincidently the UN is holding a conference from 02-27th of July 2012. The 'Arms Trade Treaty' a questionable potential multinational treaty that would regulate the international trade in conventional weapons.
We should refrain from using Holmes and Breivik as a lever for debate on the subject of gun control however brutal and easily executed the attacks were. Some states in America permit you to carry a firearm whilst out of your home. If other people are walking around the streets with concealed firearms, would you feel safe not doing so yourself? I doubt you would. The gun laws in America differ too much to go in detail.
I spoke to two friends with different opinions on gun control. One friend was British, he saw no need for holding a firearm. The other was American, he on the other hand believed it was his right. I put this question to my British friend. "If someone armed with a pistol broke into your property, held you at gunpoint and raped either your wife or child in front of you, what would you do?" I continued, "not only would you be helpless whilst this ordeal ensued, you would no doubt be mentally scarred for life if you survived such an attack". I then added, "everything I just said could be prevented by your family owning a firearm."
James Holmes acquired all his weapons and ammunition legally from several gun shops over the last two months. Presumably he didn't buy them with his hair dyed bright orange. The fact that Holmes bought his weapons consecutively over the period of two months should have raised the alarm. Should gun stores share information on customers, if say an individual purchases more than one firearm over a short period of time? The blame is therefore not on the gun. Holmes supposedly slipped through the net, he had no criminal offences other than a speeding ticket. One of the gun shops Holmes purchased his weapons from called Bass Pro released this statement:
"Based on the records we have reviewed, personnel in our Denver store correctly and fully followed all federal requirements with respect to the sale of one shotgun and one handgun to the individual identified in this incident. Background checks, as required by federal law, were properly conducted and he was approved."
Indeed the staff at Bass Pro reviewed Holmes with due diligence. Had they known that Holmes was collecting arms in such a short space of time would Bass Pro have conducted their background check more thoroughly? Holmes didn't slip through the net, he cut right through it.
LATEST NEWS
UN global arms treaty talks end without agreement
BBC
Tuesday 24 July 2012
IRAN'S AC/DC CONCERT...
Iran's nuclear facilities have reportedly been attacked by a musical virus. In the dead of night the computers come to life and belt out AC/DC's Thunderstruck!!
“There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC,” said a scientist.
Read more on Russia Today.
Tony Blair says....
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| Nazi soldiers conducting a search of an individual |
In an interview with the Telegraph Tony Blair warned against coming down hard on bankers. Saying "don't take 30 years of liberalisation, beginning under Mrs Thatcher, and say this is what caused the financial crisis".
Could this be a way of shifting blame from his government onto Thatchers? Perhaps bankers are the scapegoat?
He also said that "we mustn't go back to the state running everything". He is right in saying that financial liberalisation is good and that it shouldn't be restricted. However like most things pure, it has become diluted over time. Look at China's communism, how far is it from its source yet the party running China is the Communist Party? My point being there is a difference between liberal and too much liberalism. Our financial system has effectively gone nude leaving too many people exposed.
Adding to his remarks that the state shouldn't run everything, personal freedom under Tony Blair was the worst this country has seen probably since during the blitz. Our everyday lives were being perversely monitored by the state. Councils rummaging through our bills, freedom of speech limited, anything national suppressed, cctv's imposed on every corner, the BBC singing the New Labour anthems, telling us what to eat and what not to. Health and Safety ruining the fun of life which often naturally involves danger. And then there was the DNA database, the largest ever collected. Terrorism laws used out of context by the police to arrest or search under the stop and search powers. Ordinary people being harassed by the state after being labelled problem families. Asked when to intervene Tony responded "pre birth even".
This was the state interfering in everything but the financial sector! The state had become diluted, its responsibilities clouded under 13 years of Tony Blair's New Labour and it is because of that we are where we are today.
Monday 23 July 2012
China's thousands of billionaires..
A recent report in China suggests there are as many as 60,000 yuan billionaires.
Read more on CHINA DAILY.
A trip to the Sun
Chinese theoretical scientists believe that our world will be ripped from the sun months before the universe ends. You have exactly 16.7 billion years....
Read more on the Daily Mail.
Awesome...
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| A room with a view aboard the ISS |
Watch the video at GIZMODO.
DY NASTY...
Tony Blair yesterday apologised. Let me start again, Tony Blair yesterday accepted a small amount of responsibility for the UK's economic crisis and damage done to the financial sector.This humble offering was on parade merely a week since Mr Blair announced his wishes to return to British politics. His initial welcoming event had to be cancelled due to anti war/Blair protesters awaiting his arrival. The prospect of being greeted by airborne tomatoes rather than sycophantic supporters would have disturbed his web of spin doctors. Instead Tony's Labour revival party was rescheduled for the Emirates stadium, tucked away from reality. Ordinary Labour supporters and party members were reportedly charged an extortionate fee of £500 per head for tickets that no Gillian Duffy could afford.
Continuing with Blair's fortified media siege on the British public he proclaimed that Cherie his wife had helped bring the Olympics to the UK by meeting "insignificant" people from around the world.
On top of this it has been said that Tony's eldest son Euan intends to become an MP. No doubt he will be placed in a soft constituency where he can progress with ease. A close friend of the Blair's said that Cherie "likes the idea of a Kennedy-style Blair dynasty".
Euan Blair has been working at the investment bank Morgan Stanley and is said to have quit his position where he earned large sums of money, in 2010 Euan received a six figure bonus from the bank. Some are already coining him an opportunist. Euan also had worked internships for both congressmen in the Democratic and Republican parties of the U.S.
Turkey deploys air to surface-to-air missiles
Turkey has deployed ground-to-air missiles on its border with Syria as a precaution.
Read more on Russia Today.
Sunday 22 July 2012
Saturday 21 July 2012
Russia aiming at the moon..
"Despite a string of failed mission launches, equipment losses, and launch setbacks over the past year, Russia is looking to restore its integrity by developing a manned spacecraft that will have humans stepping foot on the Moon again for the first time in more than 40 years."
Read more on redOrbit.
Secret online weapons armoury..
"Now guns, ammo, explosives, and more have their own shadowy home online, far from the piles of Dutch coke and American meth. But the same rules apply: with nothing more than money and a little online savoir faire, you can buy extremely powerful, deadly weapons — Glocks, Berettas, PPKs, AK-47s, Bushmaster rifles, even a grenade — in secret, shipped anywhere in the world."
Read more on GIZMODO.
Friday 20 July 2012
Neurosecurity..
Have you ever forgot an important password? Lock it in your brain subconsciously, only you will ever know it.
Read more on POPSCI.
The Pacific
The Pacific, a place of many cultures and differences. It's also a place of great power where great interests follow. The Pacific makes up a third of the world's oceans. The Pacific contains an estimate of 25,000 islands, ignoring the mainland coastlines. The worlds greatest powers all have vested interests in the Pacific, these include; Russia, U.S, China, India, Japan, Korea and Britain. This complex sphere of mixed influence ultimately leads to territorial disputes over the smallest pieces of land which are surrounded by an abundance of resources. 
"Among the most significant features of the situation which mark the beginning of a new century is the advent of Russia, coming overland, on the Pacific littoral, where she has acquired an important seaboard with good harbours and a maritime population. On the other hand, we have the sudden appearance of the United States, coming over-sea, and establishing herself in a large, populous, and important archipelago on the borders of Asia. Thus the greatest Autocracy and the greatest Democracy meet in the Far East, and the question of their future relations is one of the most interesting raised by our study of the situation. Will the United States, abandoning the policy by which her foreign relations have hitherto been guided, follow the example of Britain, or will she consider what may be termed her immediate material interests and give the support of her contenance (repression) to Russia by following out to a logical conclusion the Monroe Doctrine? That Russia desires to apply such a doctrine to all Northern Asia is not to be doubted, and if the United States in her new sphere should take a similar view of her own interests, we may yet see the two Great Powers of the Future, the Great Autocracy and the Great Democracy, Slav and Teuton, dominating the Far and the Farthest East as two gigantic Trusts.
The future of China is a momentous question, and one of great importance in the Mastery of the Pacific. The question includes not only the internal evolution of the Great Empire, but the problems in connection with labour-supply."
The book goes on to say that "It has been said already that naval supremacy will decide the Mastery of the Pacific, and by that expression is meant not mere forcible domination, but the maintenance of commercial rights, the control of communications, and the dictation of a policy favourable to the ambitions of the successful Power or Powers. The naval development of the United States and Japan will be the earliest outcome of the situation, and other Powers, hitherto regarded as chiefly military, are already straining in the same direction. Whatever may be the success of their efforts, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States possess natural advantages which will count for much
if properly utilised."
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| Kuril Islands |
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| Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands |
China seized the Paracel's from Vietnam in a brief naval conflict in 1974, up to 53 Vietnamese and 18 Chinese sailors were killed. In 1988 another skirmish was fought over the Spratly Islands where 70 Vietnamese troops were gunned down whilst standing waist deep in water on a bar of rock at sea, no Chinese were killed (watch the video below). Just 5 years after the Battle of the Paracel Islands China and Vietnam fought a bloody 28 day border war this time on land with a death toll totalling nearly 60,000.
The Philippines and Vietnam announced earlier this year that they plan to hold 'war games' near the Spratly's which could include the Thai navy.
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| Pag-asa Island |
Earlier this year the U.S announced a shift in it's military strategy, focussing on the Pacific region. The U.S plans to send 2500 troops to Darwin, in April the first batch of 200 troops arrived in the North Australian city. Although Australia stresses this deployment is not directed at China, Darwin is almost perfectly geographically opposite to China's Hainan Island.
These disputes are mostly derived from either WW2 and other major conflicts in modern history like the Third Indochina War. One recurring factor of these claims is China and its expected territories of ancient times. It will take either another major conflict to hammer the final say or political dialogue which at present looks more than complicated. At the recent ASEAN summit meeting in Cambodia the bloc of nations failed to issue a joint statement for the first time 45 years.
LATEST NEWS
China pledges co-op with ASEAN
CHINA DAILY
Chinese exec wants to arm fishermen
philSTAR
China approves military garrison on disputed Islands
BBC
Sansha City raises threat of conflict?
TIME
Japan threatens military action over Diaoyu Islands
CHINA DAILY
China's Hong Kong military garrison expanding
STRATEGY PAGE
South Korean leaders visit to islands stirs tension with Japan
Daily Mail
Thursday 19 July 2012
Wednesday 18 July 2012
Tony Blair, prophet or pariah?
"In politics, very, very few issues can be reduced to unarguable moral certainties. This is one. Tony Blair is no wrongly dishonoured prophet but a pariah in his own land. He is a pariah because he colluded in an act of abundant wickedness, and untold hundreds of thousands died and millions more suffered monstrously in consequence."
By Mathew Norman, read more on the Independent.
Return To Sender⏎
British MP's are calling to better the UK's defences against cyber attacks. They're also calling to go on the offensive.Financial fraud is behind 63% of cyber attacks in the UK. Meanwhile 46% is stolen intellectual property, 48% customer details and only 2% are politically driven according to the Ponemon Institute.
Tuesday 17 July 2012
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