Switzerland tops the list as the best country brand globally, according to the Country Brand Index, out today from global brand consultancy FutureBrand. As a symbol of economic, cultural and social stability in our tumultuous world, Switzerland “shows that the cultivation of freedom, tolerance, transparency and environmentalism can put a country’s brand ahead—even in difficult economic times,” says FutureBrand Global Chairman Chris Nurko. “On a human level, Switzerland is also a country geared around its people and their needs.” As a result, the country supplanted two-time leader Canada by scoring high marks in CBI’s Value System dimension, including impressive scores it the political freedom, environmental friendliness and stable legal environment attributes.
At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.
“The nuclear plant at Fukushima was built by GE (General Electric), which means it was not the Japanese who miscalculated the risks of building in a flood plain in an area subject to earthquakes and consequent tsunami. GE has been involved in a great many similar projects in Japan for many decades, since long before WW2. A full investigation of GE's role is imperative, because blaming it all on the Japanese is a cop-out — especially when you realize that the consequences of the Fukushima disaster are much greater (and scarier) than has been revealed so far. Sterling Seagrave”
President Obama’s response to Mitt Romney comments on the size of the U.S. Navy during Monday’s debate did not “play well” with American voters, former CIA Director Michael Hayden tells Newsmax.
Romney complained that the Navy is “smaller now than any time since 1917.”
Obama responded: “We also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed.”
He added sarcastically: “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines.” The issue, he said, “is not a game of Battleship, where we are counting ships.”
In the world of security clearances for access to classified information, the term “reciprocity” is used to indicate that one executive branch agency should ordinarily recognize and accept a security clearance that has been granted by another executive branch agency.
This is not just a nice, cost-efficient thing to do, it is actually a requirement of law. Under the 2004 intelligence reform law, “all security clearance background investigations and determinations… shall be accepted by all agencies.”
This requirement for mutual recognition and acceptance applies equally to the higher order clearances of the intelligence community, where reciprocity is intended to promote employee “mobility” throughout the intelligence system, according to the 2009 Intelligence Community Directive 709.
So possessing a clearance from one agency should simplify the process of access approval at another agency. But the opposite is not supposed to be true. If an agency refuses for some reason to recognize the clearance granted by another agency, that refusal is not supposed to incur loss of clearance in the original agency.
Officially, such “negative reciprocity” is not an authorized, legitimate security clearance practice. And yet there are signs that it is being adopted within the Department of Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA), which rules on contested security clearance cases.
A new paper by attorney Sheldon I. Cohen describes a series of DOHA rulings in which a perverse form of negative reciprocity has been used to justify the denial or revocation of a security clearance, to the obvious detriment of due process.
“While the burden of proof has always been placed on the employee by the DOHA Appeal Board to show why he or she should be granted a security clearance, until now there was a modicum of a right to confrontation, and a right to challenge the evidence presented by the government,” Mr. Cohen wrote.
But in a ruling he describes, “anonymous redacted reports and other agency's decision are enough to deny or revoke a DoD clearance regardless of contrary evidence.”
Farmers drilling ever deeper wells over decades to water their crops likely contributed to a deadly earthquake in southern Spain last year, a new study suggests. The findings may add to concerns about the effects of new energy extraction and waste disposal technologies.
An Italian court sentenced scientists to jail time for not having a functioning crystal ball ahead of the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila. The arguments of science and reason fell on deaf ears.
