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West vows to boost Syria rebels, Russia says they should be 'compelled' to join peace talks


RT
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 08:56 UTC
Fabius, Hague and Kerry in Paris talks
© AFP/ Kenzo Tribouillard
French Foreign Affairs minister Laurent Fabius (C), US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) and British Foreign Affairs Secretary William Hague (L) give a press conference after talks on the Syria crisis on September 16, 2013 in Paris. France.
The US, UK and France have agreed to bolster Syrian rebels by providing more help, press Syria into delivering on its promise to hand over chemical weapons and seek an end to the conflict, which would involve ousting of President Bashar Assad.

The intentions were voiced by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his counterparts from Washington and London at a joint media conference.

Fabius was speaking in Paris just days after the US and Russia reached an agreement under which Washington will put its plans to use military force against Syrian President Bashar Assad on hold in exchange for Damascus dismantling its chemical weapons arsenal.

West hopes for Syria without Assad

US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed America's adherence to the plan, but said there must be consequences for Syria if it does not deliver on its promise. The disarmament deal is to be formalized by a UN Security Council resolution yet to be voted on.

Meanwhile UK Foreign Secretary William Hague pledged that the three countries would work with Russia to gather an international conference in Geneva to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis.

A political solution is part of the plan, which was unveiled by Kerry and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last Saturday. Organization of the Geneva-2 conference has been delayed for months, as Syrian opposition forces opposed it.

Still Kerry stressed Washington's position that the UN resolution is not "a lifeline" for Assad, who, the UN official said, has "lost all legitimacy" after more than two years of fighting with rebel forces.
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Candle

Russia will agree to consequences for Syria, only if it believes '100 percent' that a violation has occurred

Patrick Goodenough
CNS News
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 07:44 UTC
Lavrov and Kerry in Geneva
© State Department
Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and their senior advisors meet on the pool deck of the Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva on September 14 during a final negotiating session over an agreement to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons.
The Obama administration says its painstakingly negotiated agreement with Russia over removing Syria's chemical weapons arsenal includes consequences for non-compliance, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that for that to happen, Moscow would need to be "100 percent " sure a violation has taken place.

That comment during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva signaled the expected difficulties ahead: Throughout the civil war, Russia has disputed allegations of misconduct by its ally in Damascus, and it has used its veto in the U.N. Security Council three times to block even muted criticism of the Assad regime.

The agreement reached in marathon talks in Geneva requires President Bashar Assad's regime to provide an inventory of its chemical weapons program within one week, and in its first public reaction, information minister Omran al-Zoubi said Sunday said it would comply once the agreement has been embedded in a Security Council resolution.

He told British television that Syria views the agreement "with great seriousness" and has begun drawing up the relevant documents. Under the deal, initial inspections are to be completed by November and the arsenal eliminated by mid-2014.

U.S. officials hailed the agreement as a diplomatic feat, highlighting that the Russians had agreed that in the event Assad does not comply, measures would be taken under chapter seven of the U.N. Charter.
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Question

Whose 'boots on the ground' will protect weapons inspectors in Syria?

Patrick Goodenough
CNS News
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 07:22 UTC
Boots on the ground
© Geoffrey Ingersoll via U.S. Marine Corps
When international scientific and technical personnel enter Syria to inspect, remove and destroy the regime's chemical weapons stockpiles, they will need significant security support, raising questions about whether the Obama administration will keep its pledge to have no U.S. military deployed inside Syria.

No one is publicly saying who will provide the protection needed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) personnel entering a war zone, yet. But the wording of the agreement negotiated between the U.S. and Russia in recent days acknowledges the need for such security - and indicates that the two countries will share a responsibility in arranging it.

"The Russian Federation and the United States will work together closely, including with the OPCW, the U.N. and Syrian parties to arrange for the security of the monitoring and destruction mission, noting the primary responsibility of the Syrian government in this regard," it says.
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Extinguisher

Fire breaks out on Russian nuclear submarine under repair


The Guardian
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 07:14 UTC
Russian submarine
© AP
Russia's Kursk submarine, of the same class as the Tomsk, which sank in 2001.
A fire has broken out on a Russian nuclear submarine undergoing repairs, but no injuries or radiation leaks have been reported.

Russian news reports said the fire on the Tomsk submarine at repair yards in the Pacific coast city of Bolshoi Kamen had been extinguished with foam on Monday.

The Tomsk, capable of firing cruise missiles, has been undergoing repairs since 2010.

Reports said all its weaponry had been removed and the reactor was shut down, although it was not clear if any nuclear material remained in the reactor.

The Tomsk is of the same class as the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in 2001 in the Barents Sea after an explosion, killing all 118 people on board.
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Take 2

NSA director modeled war room after Star Trek's Enterprise


PBS Newshour
Fri, 13 Sep 2013 05:34 UTC
Star trek
© Unknown

Congressional leaders already have a lot of power, but do they secretly want to captain the USS Enterprise? In an in-depth profile of NSA Director Keith B. Alexander, Foreign Policy reveals that one of the ways the general endeared himself to lawmakers and officials was to make them feel like Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship Enterprise from the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
"When he was running the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather 'captain's chair' in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.

'Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard,' says a retired officer in charge of VIP visits."
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian has located photos he believes depict the Information Dominance Center on the website of an architectural firm in Virginia. More photos are located on the firm's website. (PDF)
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Nuke

Endless Fukushima catastrophe: 2020 Olympics under contamination threat

Dr Helen Caldicott
RT
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 04:39 UTC
Fukushima nuclear plant
© AFP Photo / TEPCO
As the escape of radiation at Fukushima seems virtually unstoppable, there are still steps that governments all over the world should take to prevent worst case consequences. One of them would be canceling the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores of Oregon, Washington State and Canada early next year. California will probably be impacted later that year. Because the ongoing flow of water from the reactor site will be virtually impossible to stop, a radioactive plume will continue to migrate across the Pacific affecting Hawaii, North America, South America and eventually Australia for many decades.

We are only talking about ocean currents, however, fish swim thousands of miles and don't necessarily follow the currents. As noted in Part I, big fish concentrate radiation most efficiently, and tuna have already been caught off the coast of California containing cesium from Fukushima. Seaweed also efficiently concentrates radioactive elements.

As I contemplate the future at Fukushima, it seems that the escape of radiation is virtually unstoppable. The levels of radiation in buildings 1, 2 and 3 are now so high that no human can enter or get close to the molten cores. It will therefore be impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years if ever.
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Pirates

Extremists and Al-Qaeda carrying rebel fight in Syria - study


RT
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 04:07 UTC
Syrian rebel
© Reuters / Hamid Khatib
Almost half of the rebel forces fighting against the Syrian government are hardline Islamists or jihadists with Al-Qaeda links, according to a new study due to be published this week.

Split into around 1,000 fragmented cells, the Syrian opposition consists of at least 10,000 fighters who are jihadists with strong links to Al-Qaeda, while another 35,000 are hardline Islamists, according to analysis by defense consultancy IHS Jane's.

The difference between jihadist and hardliners, the Telegraph reports is that the latter concentrates only on the Syria, while jihadist groups have a global outreach. A further 30,000 opposition fighters belong to more moderate groups that have an Islamic character. The study, based interviews with militants and on intelligence estimates, concludes that around 100,000 rebel fighters are involved with the opposition forces.

"The insurgency is now dominated by groups which have at least an Islamist viewpoint on the conflict," Charles Lister, author of the analysis told the Telegraph. "The idea that it is mostly secular groups leading the opposition is just not borne out."

Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are two dominant groups that have Al-Qaeda links and are gaining momentum on the ground.

"Because of the Islamist make up of such a large proportion of the opposition, the fear is that if the West doesn't play its cards right, it will end up pushing these people away from the people we are backing," Lister said. "If the West looks as though it is not interested in removing Assad, moderate Islamists are also likely to be pushed further towards extremists."
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Dollar

Saudi prince owns a huge chunk of Twitter


TechEye Net
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:56 UTC
Alwaleed bin Talal
© RichPeopleThings
Four short months ago, the Saudi religious police said "anyone using Twitter "has lost this world and his afterlife" and the wonderfully titled grand mufti, said that Twitter users were "fools".

According to the Economic Times, it has come as a surprise to many involved in the Twitter IPO that Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal happens to be a key investor in Twitter and will have a sizeable share in the coming IPO.

The Prince said that he has invested $300 million in Twitter and he will not be selling his stake at all.

He thinks that with 300 million customers, half a billion tweets a day, the growth potential of the social notworking site is tremendous.

Of course the official hatred for the site in Saudi Arabia means nothing to Alwaleed. He is against anybody who tries to control or censor Twitter or any other social media, even if it is governments.

Alwaleed said that Twitter accelerated the process of disseminating news. It has to remain an open forum for everyone.

He admits that it is a losing war. This might be a little strange given that the imam of the Grand Mosque's public TV appearance warning the Saudi people that "Twitter was a threat to national unity".

The prince is a nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and owner of international investment firm Kingdom Holding.

Alwaleed is a closely watched figure in international markets because of successful investments through Kingdom Holding in companies such as Citigroup and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
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Attention

An aspiring scientist's frustration with modern-day academia: A Resignation

Pascal Junod
Crypto Junod Info
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 23:11 UTC
Research
© Crypto Junod Info
Here is a mind-blowing text that was sent to all EPFL researchers (presumably) by a doctoral student during the week-end. It expresses feelings that are worth to think about.

Just to be crystal-clear:
  • I am not the author of this text.
  • I don't publish the name of his/her author, since I have no proof that his/her e-mail address was not spoofed.
  • I don't think that the exposed facts are a problematic unique to EPFL, nor to any other Swiss university: to the contrary, this is probably a worldwide phenomenon.
  • Finally, I would like to make very clear that I did not experience the same feelings at all during my (very happy) PhD times at EPFL. So, don't try to make any parallel with my own experience.
  • Like the author, I don't have any good idea how to change the system towards a better one.
Still, if you are or have been in the academic world, I think it is worth to invest 10 minutes to read this text.
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Black Magic

'Spies taped Diana's crash and bugged her phone'

Donal MacIntyr
express.co.uk
Sun, 15 Sep 2013 00:00 UTC
British spies would have recorded the last moments of ­Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed by bugging their mobile phones, it is claimed.

Image
© express.co.uk
Diana using her mobile phone while in Sardinia in August 1997, the month she died
A key UK security industry source who served in the military told the Sunday Express that GCHQ remotely switched on recorder modes right up to the moment the couple took their fatal Paris car trip.

If made public, the phone recordings could help throw light on sensational claims by former SAS serviceman ­Soldier N that Diana was murdered by an SAS assassination squad.

The bugging claim came as a separate Sunday Express investigation revealed that film footage of Diana's last hours was "kept secret". An exhaustive inquiry in the French cap­ital has confirmed the existence of CCTV records of the night Diana died in August 1997.

Many belong to private companies who used France's strict privacy laws to avoid having to hand them over to the police.

Just as crucially, a key traffic camera overlooking the scene of the crash in the Alma Tunnel was said to be switched off or malfunctioning.

However, one operator contacted 16 years on said: "Images would have been available if people wanted them to be. The truth is that every excuse poss­ible was made to make sure that live film could be kept secret.

"This suited lots of powerful people, especially those who wanted to dismiss the crash as a simple traffic accident."

The operator, who asked not to be identified because he "fears for my safety", said he was convinced that all available film was "rounded up and hidden or destroyed".

Military sources have claimed Diana's driver, Henri Paul, was blinded with an intense flash of light forcing him to lose control of their Mercedes on an underpass after leaving the Ritz hotel.
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