Syria’s Salafi InsurgenTs: The Rise of The Syrian Islamic Front
Swedish Institute of International Affairs, March 2013
Click on title to access PDF (51 pages)
Berto Jongman: Swedish Analysis of Syria’s Salafi Insurgents
05 Civil War19 April Georgetown University Reinventing the Internet’s Phone Book – Institutions, Industry, Infrastructure
Advanced Cyber/IOReinventing the Internet’s Phone Book?
Institutions, Industry, Infrastructure
Friday, April 19th, 2013
Executive Conference Room (ECR), 7th Floor, Intercultural Center (ICC)
Georgetown University Main Campus
37th and O Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.
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The “invisible” infrastructures of the Internet’s lower layers – addresses, protocols, domain names – are increasingly used to serve political objectives different from the purpose they were initially designed for. Are we currently experiencing a “turn to infrastructure” for Internet governance? This conference explores the political, social and technical implications of this recent tendency, by focusing on a particularly controversial aspect of Internet infrastructure: the Domain Name System, the Internet’s “phone book.” |
Berto Jongman: Human Geography Event & References
Cultural Intelligence, Earth IntelligenceAdvancing Human Intelligence Integration for GEOINT and the IC
6-8 May 2013 Arlington Virginia
Download the Human Geography 2013 Brochure
Patrick Meier: Humanitarianism in the Network Age: Groundbreaking Study
Crowd-Sourcing, Geospatial, Governance, Innovation, United Nations & NGOs
Humanitarianism in the Network Age: Groundbreaking Study
My colleagues at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have just published a groundbreaking must-read study on Humanitarianism in the Network Age; an important and forward-thinking policy document on humanitarian technology and innovation. The report “imagines how a world of increasingly informed, connected and self-reliant communities will affect the delivery of humanitarian aid. Its conclusions suggest a fundamental shift in power from capital and headquarters to the people [that] aid agencies aim to assist.” The latter is an unsettling prospect for many. To be sure, Humanitarianism in the Network Age calls for “more diverse and bottom-up forms of decision-making—something that most Governments and humanitarian organizations were not designed for. Systems constructed to move information up and down hierarchies are facing a new reality where information can be generated by any-one, shared with anyone and acted by anyone.”
The purpose of this blog post (available as a PDF) is to summarize the 120-page OCHA study. In this summary, I specifically highlight the most important insights and profound implications. I also fill what I believe are some of the report’s most important gaps. I strongly recommend reading the OCHA publication in full, but if you don’t have time to leaf through the study, reading this summary will ensure that you don’t miss a beat. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes and figures below are taken directly from the OCHA report.
John Maguire: UFO Movie Screens on 22 April — Both Controversial and Eye Opening
05 Energy, Civil Society, Ethics, Extraterrestial Intelligence
Doctor Steven Greer has been on the front-lines of the UFO-Disclosure and Free-Energy Movement for over a decade. Greer is the founder of the vaunted Disclosure Project that interviewed/documented over 200 former military personnel about their experiences with UFOs, ETs, and Exotic Technologies under oath/signed affidavit.
Later this month Greer and his team will be releasing Sirius, a crowd-funded documentary that may very well eclipse the impact of Disclosure Project. Only time will tell.
UFO documentary reveals “humanoid of unknown classification” (OpenMinds, 3 April 2013)
Sirius Theatrical Trailer – Dr. Steven Greer, UFO's, Extraterrestrials, Alternative Energy (YouTube, 2:20)
SchwartzReport: Chained CPI is 1% Code for Screw the 99% Forevermore
Corruption, Government, Idiocy
I completely support this. The last place where power still resides with ordinary people lies in the vote. Everything else in our government may increasingly be a charade of retained form underneath of which lies corrupted substance. But the vote still matters because it determines who gets to play. Any compromise in the already tattered social safety net, should result in all those who voted fo! r the compromise being cast out of office.
#ChainedCPI? For Every Social Security Judas, a Primary Challenge
Robert Naiman – truthout
EXTRACT
The moment of truth has arrived. According to press reports, President Obama has openly embraced cutting Social Security and veterans benefits by imposing the “chained CPI” cut on cost of living increases, which is like signing in blood the idea that the federal government's priorities should be owned by the 1% rather than by the 99%. The war in Afghanistan will continue, the boondoggle F-35 “Bankrupter” fighter plane will continue, the $83 billion annual taxpayer subsidy to the “too big to fail” banks will continue, but the earned benefits of America's working families, including disabled veterans and their survivors, will be cut if President Obama has his way.
The only thing that can stop President Obama from cutting Social Security now is Congress. Therefore, the only thing that can stop President Obama from cutting Social Security now is public pressure on Congress to stand up to Obama and say no. The pressure that has been exerted so far was not sufficient to stop President Obama from doing this. Therefore, public pressure against Social Security cuts must significantly escalate.
Berto Jongman: Managing Famine Risk – Linking Early Warning to Early Action
Earth IntelligenceChatham House Report
Rob Bailey, April 2013
Report: Managing Famine Risk: Linking Early Warning to Early Action
Executive Summary: Managing Famine Risk: Linking Early Warning to Early Action
- Despite strong economic growth in many countries of the Horn and Sahel, environmental and demographic changes coupled to low levels of political inclusion and high instability mean that the risk of acute food crises is likely to increase. Conflict and geopolitics act as risk multipliers, meaning that full-blown famine remains a real threat, as was seen most recently in Somalia during 2011.
- These trends mean unmet humanitarian needs are increasing in the Horn and Sahel despite increasing donor spending. The use of famine Early Warning Systems (EWS) to anticipate and mitigate food crises provides a major opportunity to save more lives, protect more livelihoods, check rising costs and close the widening funding gap.
- Yet all too often the link between early warning and early action fails and the opportunity to mitigate a gathering crisis is lost. This report considers in detail the various political, institutional and organizational barriers to translating early warning of famine into early action to avert it, and makes recommendations for how these can be overcome.
Project on Translating Early Warning of Food Crises into Early Action.
Chatham House report: Famine risks are badly managed
BBC News, 5 April 2013
Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Managing Famine Risk – Linking Early Warning to Early Action”
