Thanks to our sources in the US State Department, we have obtained the transcript of the al-Qaeda telephone call that sparked temporary US embassy closures in the Middle East and worldwide travel warnings. The conversation between al-Qaeda global leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) makes it clear why the US had no option but to raise the terrorist threat level to its highest code.
As many as ten companies including AT&T, Cisco Systems, GE, IBM, and Intel are working with US government representatives to form a consortium to drive the so-called Industrial Internet. Their goal is to define an architectural framework for open industry standards that would serve a broad swath of market sectors from automotive and manufacturing to healthcare and the military.
Terrorist Alert: Special Comment. It is always hazardous to comment on events without having had access to the underlying source material about them. This is especially true of threatening developments. Thus it is not possible to comment on the quality or accuracy of the information on which the current terrorist alert rests.
What makes this threat warning even trickier is that terrorist groups have long known that the US and others eavesdrop on their conversations and chatter. Terrorist knowledge of US eavesdropping practices creates the condition for a perfect set up for deception. It also makes warnings based primarily on that intelligence evidence unpersuasive.
After Yemeni Offensive Against al Qaeda in South, Militants Keep Low Profile, Say Officials
EXTRACT
Some officials in San'a, however, worry that President Hadi's credibility has been undercut by reports issued by government spokesmen earlier in the day that the country's security forces had uncovered and foiled a variety of terrorist plotsāincluding, the spokesmen said, planned attacks against a major Yemeni oil facility, military installations and Western embassies.
U.S. officials cast doubt on the veracity of the claims, saying that the U.S. hadn't changed its assessment of a broad al Qaeda threat. Later Wednesday, Yemen's SABA state news agency cited security sources denying there had been a threat against the oil terminal.
Dolphins are washing up dead along the East Coast this summer, perplexing scientists who fear a recurrence of a large-scale die-off several decades ago. Cameron McWhirter has more on the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
Peers will build on key aspects of the movement that Shareable, as a pioneering sharing movement organization, helped shape. Peersā mission is to make sharing the defining economic activity of our time. They will do this through grassroots campaigns to make sharing more visible, grow the number of sharers, and legalize sharing.
With the launch a promising new sharing movement organization calledĀ PeersĀ today, itās a good time to reflect on the character of the sharing movement.
Peers will build on key aspects of the movement that Shareable, as a pioneering sharing movement organization, helped shape. Peersā mission is to make sharing the defining economic activity of our time. They will do this through grassroots campaigns to make sharing more visible, grow the number of sharers, and legalize sharing.
Letās take stock of the movement. We have something special here. Sharing is deeply empowering. Itās fun and fulfilling to connect with others in such a mutually beneficial way, and sharing also helps us meet our needs. Itās rare that a movement has such powerful psychological and economic personal drivers. On top of this is the fact that we urgently need to share. Poverty and resource depletion are today's defining challenges. Sharing is a systemic fix that can address these challenges simultaneously.
With mainstream media coverage of the sharing trend, millions of people are waking up to the potential of sharing. Cities are waking up to it too ā the mayors of 15 major cities recently signed a Shareable Cities Resolution promising to advance the sharing economy in their cities. This builds on the plans of Mayor Edwin Lee of San Francisco and Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul who have shareable city initiatives already underway.
We should appreciate the strengths of this movement and build on them. Hereās more on what we have to build on and how we can build on it.
Peer to Peer Inside
Peers puts the soul of the sharing economy into its name. Peer to peer dynamics form the basis of a new, liberating social contract.
The old social contract bound citizens to large hierarchies like nations and multinational corporations. In this contract, citizens gained the protection of hierarchies in return for obedience, labor or taxes. Citizenās rights were protected by intermediaries like labor unions, courts, and elected officials.
This contract favored the powerful from the start, but now theyāve completely broken it. The powerful ā mainly big business in Western-style democracies ā have co-opted or weakened the intermediaries designed to protect citizens. The elite are now almost completely free to consolidate wealth and power even more that they already have ā all at grave expense to citizens.
I know this, you know this, and the multitudes know this. As a result, weāre seeing an unprecedented level of social unrest around the world.
As they have always done in crises, people are turning to each other to survive. Whatās different today is that a new coordination mechanism ā the Internet ā enables individuals to create, share, and govern directly with one another using networks instead of hierarchies.
With this, a new social contract is forming based on peer to peer relations, which the P2P Foundation has been exploring for a decade. Instead competing with sharp elbows for rank in the hierarchy, individuals are empowered to face each other as equals and ask a simple but revolutionary question ā āwhat can we create together?ā
The power of the web is a hot topic for business journals and Internet startups, notably its ability to turn a simple idea into a powerful force by leveraging existing social interactions and letting people share whatās important to them. No longer do we rely on a few experts and advertisers to dole out information according to their own priorities, and passively consume that information. On the contrary, content can be created and curated by literally thousands of āaverageā people with above average interest and insight, and spread across huge aggregations of likeminded people.
Iāve been watching closely the up-and-coming site āOne Hundred Tables,ā a restaurant listing site thatās built on a simple idea: one hundred featured restaurants in each of one hundred cities. Founder Tony Akston has created a million-dollar business model by charging just $100 to be listed, a sum a restaurant can recoup by snagging just one new regular.Ā The concept is simple, the site is low in cost to host and maintain, and it offers something every entrepreneur strives for: overwhelming value for the customer. The price point is almost unthinkably reasonable given the opportunity for return ā a rare business āno brainer.ā The real earning potential is in the exponential multiplication of small transactions ā a staple concept for web-based businesses.
