NIGHTWATCH: Nigeria Losing Three Northeastern States to Fundamentalist Islamic Fighters

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards
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Nigeria: President Goodluck Jonathan announced a “state of emergency” in three northeastern states in an attempt to curb the increasingly violent attacks by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. (Note: Boko Haram is Hausa for “Western education is sinful.”)

In a televised address Jonathan said, “We are facing a rebellion and insurgency by terrorist groups which pose a very serious threat to our national unity….They have attacked government buildings and facilities. They have murdered innocent citizens and state officials. They have set houses ablaze, and taken women and children as hostages. These actions amount to a declaration of war…. I hereby declare a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.”

Comment: The three states lie in the far northeast, bordering Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The catalyst for the declaration was a coordinated attack last week in the town of Bama in Borno state. Some 200 Boko Haram fighters in buses and machine gun-mounted trucks attacked an army barracks, the policy station and the prison. They freed more than 100 prison inmates and killed 55 people, mostly police and other security forces.

Boko Haram is a fundamentalist Islamist fighting group that is dedicated to creating an Islamic state based on Sharia in northern Nigeria, which is predominantly Islamic. Its rebellion since 2009 has resulted in about 3,600 people killed, including security forces. One Nigerian analyst reported it has several hundred armed fighters, but it has significant local sympathy.

Security officials state Bokop Haram controls at least 10 of 27 local government areas in Borno state, which is the center of the insurgency. One official says the real figure could be closer to 20 of 27 because local councilors fearing assassination have fled, leaving a power vacuum filled by bearded radicals with automatic rifles.

The government judged that a suppression campaign between December 2011 and July 2012, which included a limited imposition of martial law, had nearly eliminated the threat. The latest reports indicate the movement has recovered.

Recent activity suggests Boko Haram intends to set up an Islamist administration in the territory it now controls, as well as fight government security forces. This is the pattern followed by al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in northern Mali. Boko Haram has contacts with AQIM and the style of the Bama attack plus the weapons used – machined guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers – suggest new training, new financing, more weapons and more cohesive operations characteristic of AQIM.

Recovering lost districts will be difficult for the Nigerian Army. Its past campaigns were so brutal that they alienated the local villagers and ensured tolerance if not support for Boko Haram.

Search: national intelligence model

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The National Intelligence Model (NIM) has been used by police to do intelligence with integrity about threats, capabilities, and outcomes.  This is not done by the US Government or most others.  Capabilities are generally not related to threats (inputs) or outcomes (desired strategy and policy goals) because corruption clogs up the system–decisions are made on the basis of political and financial influence, and the elements of government — the FBI, for example — are not held accoiuntable for actually producing any outcomes of significance, such as the elimination of organized crime (political, financial, and street-level).

DuckDuckGo / National Intelligence Model

Here at Phi Beta Iota there are four strategic analytic models, one graphic on evaluating intelligence (not something anyone does now with any degree of intelligence or integrity), and one graphic on Whole of Government applied intelligence with constant integrity.  Links are below.  First however, Ada Bozeman's words, words we have embraced as our guiding light in creating a Smart Nation and an approach to hybrid governance in the public interest that is rooted in ethical evidence-based decision-support.

Ada Bozeman has written:

(There is a need) to recognize that just as the essence of knowledge is not as split up into academic disciplines as it is in our academic universe, so can intelligence not be set apart from statecraft and society, or subdivided into elements…such as analysis and estimates, counterintelligence, clandestine collection, covert action, and so forth. Rather … intelligence is a scheme of things entire. (Bozeman 1998: 177):[1]

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Stephen E. Arnold: Open Source Software in Health — The Tsunami Rises

#OSE Open Source Everything, Software
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Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

List of New Open Source EHR Software Solutions

The innovative community of open source software developers have created many new applications in a variety of fields, but a recent Datamation article narrows in on one field in particular — health care. “50 Open Source Replacements for Health Care Software” shares a rundown on all fifty electronic health record software solutions.

A study from PricewaterhouseCooper revealed that 79 percent of health care execs expect to see an increase on their technology spending this year. EHR capabilities are a major area in need of an upgrade at many health care institutions but still others anticipate needing analytics to help improve care for patients. Costs may be an issue for some.

In light of expenses, the article states:

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Parag Khanna: Rise of the Info-States

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Ethics
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Parag Khanna
Parag Khanna

Edging toward the sweet spot of new-century governance

Enter the info-state. The info-state – today one of a growing number of dynamic and entrepreneurial cities, city-states or small nations scattered around the world – governs as much through data as via democracy.

Scholars have for decades appreciated political mutations that drive international competition and result in new forms of governance. In 1941, Harold Lasswell emphasized the rise of politico-military elites, such as in Imperial Japan, that shaped the ideology of ‘garrison states.’ In 1996, Richard Rosecrance forecasted a transition toward ‘virtual states’ that downsized geography and outsourced production, while investing more in human and portfolio capital than territorial expansion. Building on this logic of the economic over the political, Philip Bobbitt’s Shield of Achilles (2002) traced the advent of the ‘market state’ era, in which the maximization of individual commercial opportunity defines national power and success. Japanese business strategist Kenichi Ohmae then set the stage for the info-state era in The Next Global Stage (2005), which argued that urban agglomerations of city-states resembling the medieval Hanseatic League would become the world’s power centres.

The info-state draws on numerous important attributes of these previous – and still co-existing – units. The economic footprint supersedes the territorial, the urban industrial core and its human capital pool are the locus of value, and diplomacy is exercised by commercial and knowledge centres as much as by national capitals.

But the info-state also presents new mutations that were not conceivable in previous technological periods – a peculiar convergence of the Information Age and the devolved authority of city units and clusters. The critical shift lies in the manner of policy-making enabled by new technologies: governance is practiced in ‘real-time’ – through constant consultation, rather than through traditional, staggered democratic deliberation. In a sense, this is a post-modern democracy – or even ‘post-democracy’ – that combines popular priorities with rationalist or technocratic management. On this logic, data-driven policy might mean more objective measurement of progress, more evidence-based policy, and more accountability of leadership.

In order to thrive, an info-state must provide both the security of the garrison state model and the connectedness of the virtual state. In other words, the essence of the info-state is secure connectedness. And, to be sure, this existential reliance on secure connectedness is potentially the info-state’s most prominent vulnerability.

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Worth a Look: Wickr — Data at Rest, Data in Flight, Encrypted and Not Stored in Cloud

IO Secrets, IO Technologies, Worth A Look
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logo wickrThe Internet is forever.

Your private communications don´t need to be.

Wickr is a free app that provides: military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages ·sender-based control over who can read messages, where and for how long ·best available privacy, anonymity and secure file shredding features ·security that is simple to use

“Wickr – an iPhone encryption app a 3-year-old can use.”

“There is no reason your pictures, videos and communications should be available on some server, where it can easily be accessed by who-knows-who, or what service, without any control over what people do with it.” 

Wickr’s mission is to provide secure communications that Leave No Trace.

People are being tracked online and their data is being sold in ways they do not understand by numerous governments and corporations.

Wickr flips messaging on its head, giving control to the sender instead of the receiver (or servers in between).

After all, who doesn’t want control of the messages and media they share with others?  Security has never been so easy!

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SmartPlanet: Closer to Spray-On Solar Power for Windows

05 Energy, SmartPlanet
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smartplanet logoStartup New Energy Technologies says that it has made a significant advancement toward large-scale production of “spray on” solar power generating windows.

New Energy debuted a prototype of its “SolarWindow” technology in 2010. It has been gradually moving toward commercialization ever since, and today announced improvements that it says will bring it closer to manufacturing large window panes. That makes future skyscrapers with exteriors that create renewable energy possible – a big advancement for places such as New York City where solar panels may be impractical.

SolarWindow is a process for applying plastic solar films to glass at room temperature and at low pressure. Windows retrofitted with the film can generate energy from the sun’s visible light as well as artificial illumination such as office lighting. They remain see-through, so that the glass’s aesthetic qualities aren’t lost.

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