The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
UN food summit ends with ‘crumbs' in hunger fight
By FRANCES D'EMILIO (AP) – 1 hour ago
ROME — The head of a U.N. food agency expressed regret Wednesday that an anti-hunger summit failed to result in precise promises of funding, and critics said the meeting had only thrown crumbs to the world's 1 billion people without enough to eat.
Continue reading “Journal: United Nations a “Dumb” Elite Organization”
Afghans say poverty, not Taliban, main cause of war
Jonathon Burch – Wed Nov 18
“ Half our people have been driven mad–always in fear.”
KABUL (Reuters) – Most Afghans see not Taliban militants but poverty, unemployment and government corruption as the main causes of war in their country, according to a report by a leading aid group released on Wednesday.
After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is also one of the most corrupt. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the country live below the poverty line.
Retired military officers cash in as well-paid consultants
McKissock also had a second job. The Marines brought him back as an adviser, at double the rate of pay he made on active duty. Since 2005, the Marines have awarded McKissock contracts worth $1.2 million, in addition to his military pension of about $119,000 a year. McKissock is one of at least 158 retired admirals and generals the Pentagon has hired to offer advice under an unusual arrangement.
Continue reading “Journal: Material Poverty (AF) vs Moral Poverty (US)”
Paul McDougall November 17, 2009
Internet visionary fears an end to openness as Internet rivals consolidate power.
The Web, which began life as an open community where information and tools were freely shared across geographic, political, and social boundaries, is in danger of becoming segmented into a federation of closed camps led by a handful of increasingly powerful vendors, said Internet pundit Tim O'Reilly.”We're heading back into an ugly time,” said O'Reilly, during a keynote address Tuesday at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City.
O'Reilly said efforts by Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), Apple, and other tech vendors—as well as publishers like Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones—to create closed communities around their products and services are jeopardizing the freedom, and the spirit, of the Web.
Continue reading “Journal: Web War II”
Phi Beta Iota: Poor Newsweek. First they can't afford a photographer of their own, then they develop a cover and story that is patronizing in the extreme, rather than sexist. And then to make it worse, their cover story is so badly ranked beneath stories about the story that they are inviisble. Great photo. Memorable. Newsweek, on the other hand, is NOT memorable.
U.S. Struggles with ‘Electronic Fratricide’ in Afghanistan
November 17, 2009, Nathan Hodge
In Afghanistan, western militaries use radio frequency jammers to keep troops safe from remotely-detonated bombs. But those jammers and other gadgets have contributed to a “pollution” of the airwaves so severe that over 200 systems at Afghanistan’s main air base can’t talk to one another.
Senate Panel: 80 Percent of Cyber Attacks Preventable
November 17, 2009, Kim Zetter
If network administrators simply instituted proper configuration policies and conducted good network monitoring, about 80 percent of commonly known cyber attacks could be prevented, a Senate committee heard Tuesday.
Phi Beta Iota: Below the fold see the technical threat slide from Dr. Mich Kabay, and accompanying words, as presented to NSA at the first public conference in Las Vegas in January 2002. We have learned NOTHING since then, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is as catatonic as any so-called “Presidential” oversight agency could be…..our ignorance in the cyber-arena is halfway toward matching our ignorance in the intelligence arena–$75 billion a year for 4% of what the President needs, while we ignore 95% of the open sources in 183 languages we do not speak. At a more strategic level, we could buy peace three times for what we spend on war.
Continue reading “Journal: Cyber-Idiocy Two, Cyber-Sense Zero”
Today's recommendaitons:
Who's who in the Somali insurgency: A Reference Guide
Interview with Maajid Nawaz:Becoming a Muslim Radical
New Quilliam report: British prisons are incubating Islamist extremism
Selected Translation of the LIFG Recantation Document
Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field. Antonio Giustozzi gathers a renowned cast of journalists, experts, and academics to answer the most pressing questions regarding the Taliban today. Each contributor possesses extensive knowledge of the insurgency's latest developments, decoding its structure and organization as it operates within specific regions and provinces. They analyze the new Taliban as it expands, from the mature south, where they hold sway, to the southeast, where they struggle to penetrate, from the west and northeast, now in the initial stages of infiltration, to the provinces surrounding Kabul, which have been unexpectedly and quickly occupied.
Empires of Mud: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007. Warlords are charismatic leaders who exploit weak authorities to gain control of subnational areas. Nevertheless, warlords do in fact participate in state formation, and this book considers the dynamics of warlordism within the context of such debates. Antonio Giustozzi begins with aspects of the Afghan environment that are conducive to the fragmentation of central authority and the emergence of warlords. He then accounts for the phenomenon from the 1980s to today, considering Afghanistan's two foremost warlords, Ismail Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum, along with their political, economic, and military systems of rule.
Hot Topics
AA: Colombia releases list of alleged FARC contacts in Ecuador 11/12/09
AA: FACTBOX-Despite tensions, trade dominates Chile, Peru ties 11/14/09
BR: BRAZIL WARNS OF WANING US INFLUENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA 11/17/09
BR: Hosting Peres, Brazil's president defends Ahmadinejad 11/12/09
CL: Chile: Any US missile, radar deal under $665 million 11/12/09
CO: Colombia to release Venezuelans 11/15/09
GT: Guatemala president faces tough fight on tax reform 11/12/09
HN: Honduras' Manuel Zelaya to Obama: You're not an heir to Abraham Lincoln 11/16/09
PE: Peru: oil majors eye Amazon 11/14/09
VE: Chávez-FARC relationship tarnishes the Colombian leftwing 11/16/09
VE: Crime, plus politics, propelling Jews out of Venezuela 11/16/09
Below the Fold: Instability, Special Operations, Security Forces, Foreign Affairs, Crime
