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97 Percent Of The ‘Good Jobs’ Created Since 2011 Went To Degree Holders

Higher education institutions received some great marketing material today with the release of a report by Georgetown University that shows almost all higher paying jobs created during the 2010 – 2014 “recovery” were filled by people with some form of degree.

The report, compiled by Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, found 2.9 million positions it described as being “good jobs” created during the recovery, 97 percent, or 2.8 million of the total, had been filled by workers with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree.

The report defined “good jobs” as those offering an average of more than $42,700 annually- putting them on top of three tiers as per wages for occupations in which they are classified. For a year-round, full-time worker, these jobs offered more than $53,000 annually.

Georgetown researchers Anthony Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera and Artem Gulish wrote “The numbers are clear: postsecondary education is important for gaining access to job opportunities in the current economy. Job seekers with bachelor’s degrees or higher have the best odds of securing good jobs.”

The report also found that opposed to popular belief, the recovery had created more “good jobs” than either “low-paying jobs” – less than $25,800 annually, or “middle-wage jobs” , which paid between $25,800 to $42,700.

The researchers found that good jobs and low-wage positions had recovered fully from their recession losses, but that middle-wage jobs, have had a difficult time bouncing back – 900,000 jobs below pre-recession employment levels.

The realization that employment prospects increase with a degree is also reflected in enrollment figures for institutions of higher learning. Between 2002 and 2012, enrollment rose 24 percent, from 16.6 million to 20.6 million, with most of that growth being in full-time enrollment; where the number of full-time students rose 28 percent, while the number of part-time students rose 19 percent.

In the fall of 2013, total undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting institutions was 17.5 million students, which was an increase of 46 percent from 1990.. Undergraduate enrollment figures are expected to increase from 17.5 million to 19.6 million full time students between 2013 and 2024.

Say Goodbye To Paid Apps – By 2016 96 Percent Of Apps Will Be Free

There are apps being developed for anything and everything and according to a report from research giant Gartner, there’s more than a good chance they will all soon be free to download.

The report found that nearly 90 percent of the 45.6 billion apps that will be downloaded this year will be free. Gartner says free apps will account for 40.1 billion of all downloaded mobile apps in 2015, while five billion will have some form of charge associated with their downloading. Come 2016, the report said, a total of 309 billion apps will be downloaded with 93 percent of them being free.

Gartner’s research director Sandy Shen said “In terms of the apps that consumers are buying, 90 percent of the paid-for downloads cost less than $3 each, Similar to free apps, lower-priced apps will drive the majority of downloads. Apps between 99 cents and $2.99 will account for 87.5 percent of paid-for downloads in 2012, and 96 percent by 2016.”

Although consumers prefer free and cheap apps, Shen said this does not mean developers would be forced to to do other things to make a living, but rather would have to find other forms of income associated with the apps they produce.

She cited as examples providing applications for free download and then charging users to unlock particular features or to acquire add-on content; or allowing users free access for only a trial testing period.

According to iSuppli, another leading market research company, app purchases this year will total $5.6 billion, compared to $970 million in 2011.

Gartner expects the number of downloads featuring in-app purchasing to have increased from 5 percent of all downloads in 2011 to a 2016 figure of 30 percent.

“In-app purchasing opens the door to a recurring revenue stream for developers,” according to Shen, “but app performance and design will always be the most important factor when attracting new users and keeping them satisfied.”

At present, Apple holds the giant share of the mobile app market, with Gartner expecting the App Store to receive 21 billion download requests in 2015, a 74 percent increase over 2011. The Apple App Store has a 25 percent market share of all available apps in all stores, with Gartner predicting Apple, Microsoft and Google being the future leaders in the mobile app space.
However the big three will be challenged by third-party providers, like Facebook and Amazon.

Shen said “Amazon has appealed to users with its strong brand, global presence, and a good selection of high-quality content, while Facebook’s recently launched App Center — supporting both mobile devices and desktops — will become a powerful competitor due to its strong brand and leading position in social networking and gaming. In China, there is a boom market of independent Android stores, due to the lack of presence of Google Play and ‘weak’ stores from communication service providers.”

Slack Is So Successful Millennials Are Entering The Workforce And Never Using Email

In the market for office messaging services, Atlassian’s HipChat has long been a popular option, but a recent startup named Slack is starting to dominate the industry and steal customers.

Slack has seen its daily users grow from less than 150,000 in July of 2014, to over 1 million currently. The company raised a whopping $160 million in April and is now valued at $2.8 billion.

And it continues to be a hit with users.

The nature of office messaging versus traditional email is a big part of the incredible growth story. Group chats are one of the most-used features in office messaging, and allow for real-time collaboration, which isn’t possible with group emails.

Slack’s highly customizable search capability allows for users to find what they are looking for in past messages there is also the ability to smoothly integrate Twitter, Google Docs, and other applications that one may already be using.

Slack is acquiring users that had never before used an office messaging application, and CEO Stewart Butterfield estimates that English-speaking users alone could reach 200 million.

The applications functionality across multiple devices and numerous features are cited as the reason behind its runaway success, even the New York Times has been using the service. Most users operate the free version of software, but those who pay $2 a month are given access to more functions.

Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes does not shy away from good competition, but stated that HipChat would not lose any more users to the competing startup. Atlassian did not disclose specific numbers regarding its user base, but did illustrate the incredible growth in the market in general with Cannon-Brookes stating, “We just passed 6 billion messages sent. The first billion took about three years, the last billion took about three months. You know, it’s on a hockey stick.”

Analysts estimate the potential market for office messaging to be multiple billions of dollars, and Slack’s latest efforts look to be differentiating it from the many competitors.

ISIS Just Got Caught Buying More Land In Europe To Build A Network Of Training Facilities And Safe Houses

Security agencies in Macedonia staged multiple raids on Islamic State targets after reports indicated the terrorists are secretly acquiring land in the country. The land bought is being used for radicalization, training and planning new attacks, the latest of which is targeting mainland Europe.

The tiny Bosnian settlement of the Balkans is situated at the very center of Europe. There, the black flag of ISIS flies firmly, nestled between thick forests and towering hills. The village is among the few that have been reported to be hosting IS radicals in Europe.

High profile ISIS members are said to have bought land in the Bosnian region. Ismar Hadrovic, a Salafist reported to have led an attack on the popular Queer Festival in Sarajevo in 2008 is one of the buyers.

Harun Mehicevic, a Wahhabi preacher and one of Australia’s most dangerous men, settled in Melbourne and also owns land in Gornja Maoca.

The spate of terror linked land acquisitions have prompted the Macedonian police raids in Skopje, the country’s capital.

Identified targets of the raids include 25 homes, the Tutunsuz mosque in Skopje, the Yaya Pasha mosque, the offices of two Islam linked NGOs- Islamic Youth and Spark of Grace, and an internet café.

Nine arrests have been made so far. The suspects are aged between 19 and 49. They will remain detained for 30 days while police conduct investigations. Up to 27 more suspects are being hunted down by police.

The Center for Islamic Pluralism, a Washington based think tank, had reported the rising threat of radicalization through the group Islamic Youth in the region. A report by the group had labelled their presence as an “indicator of the bad situation in the Macedonian Muslim communities.”

According to Stephen Sulejman Schwartz, Executive Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, “The Balkan Muslims have been targeted, clearly, by radicals in the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as representatives of the Wahhabi movement. This is obvious to anybody who visits the region and knows the situation there.

“As the most outrageous example, I would cite the terroristic campaign against the Bektashi Sufis of the Harabati Baba teqe in Tetova, conducted by Wahhabi radicals with the complicity of the official Islamic Community of Macedonia.”

Police are now warning that the terror groups may be planning an attack on mainland Europe and have urged their European counterparts to keep vigil.

The land purchases by the ISIS in Europe, right under the noses of authorities, show how widespread the insurgents are spreading. Authorities are working closely with each other to detect such activity before more youth are radicalized and let loose on innocent civilians.

London Police Follow The Money Trail To De-Fund Illegal Websites

London police say their unrelenting pursuit of “seedy ad networks” and payment processors used by websites that distributed and promoted pornography, pirated software and unlicensed content was paying off.

A police department spokesman said the intercepting of advertisements on served pirate websites had choked their revenue stream by 70 percent, vindicating the department’s policy of following the “money trail”, rather than an individual infringer.

The spokesman said over recent years, some major brands had unwittingly helped fund the trade in warez and unlicensed content, citing the example of an advertisement for Lexus recently washing up on a site promoting beastiality.

He said other companies purchased ads on pirate sites knowing they had high visitor numbers and because the transaction chains behind digital ads being displayed were so complex, they pleaded ignorance and escaped any liability.

However according to musician and internet campaigner David Lowery, ignorance of the law and its processes, was no excuse. He said “I’ve never seen Coca Cola or Apple advertisements on a hardcore pornography or pirate site. If Apple can control it, so can others.”

British advertising self regulator, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which sets industry standards, conducts research, and gives legal support for the online advertising community, has been working with a London based publicly funded private policing agency, to set up a list of infringing sites so that advertisers have no excuse for having their ads screened on illegal or pirate websites.

An IAM statement released recently said “It’s clear that this is a PR problem no brand in its right mind wants to have.” but apparently the lure of a high number of viewers of advertising was so great, some agencies, or individual companies purchased digital ad space, knowing full well what the websites contained.

An executive at advertising agency giant Publicis said the problem was that “The entire advertising industry is too fixated on chasing cheap slots, even if that means ‘fishing in a cesspool’”.

Last Year American CEOs Received Pay Increases 100% Greater Than American Workers

While American workers continue to struggle to receive pay raises, the same cannot be said for Chief Executive Officers according to a report released by benefits consulting firm Mercer.

The report revealed that CEO’s of major corporations have seen their average pay jump five percent over the last year to $10.3 million, a rise of 4 percent over 2013 figures. The average worker saw raises of just 2 percent.

The report comes at a time when there is much public scrutiny and criticism of CEO compensation levels with political experts saying this, along with how large corporations are avoiding proper reporting of their earnings, is likely to become presidential campaign issues.

Early this month the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) passed rules that require public companies to reveal the difference in pay between their chief executive and the average worker, but since the ruling, the SEC has been criticized for allowing too many loopholes for proper reporting of CEO salaries and company earnings.

A recent study released by the the Economic Policy Institute also showed that large public company chief executives have seen their pay “soar” in recent decades with the average CEO compensation being $16.3 million in 2014, a 997 percent increase since 1978, compared with only a 10.9% growth for the typical worker.

The Mercer report said that the focus on CEO pay has caused corporations to limit increases to fixed compensation. Although base salaries for CEOs saw little change in 2014 , “long-term incentives are fueling overall pay increases.”

The Mercer report analyzed the compensation totals for CEO’s at 174 companies in the S&P 500 and showed long-term incentives rising 6%, while short-term incentive pay rose 4%. In comparison the wages of American workers rose 2.1% for the year ended July 31.

Study Finds Attractive Men More Likely To Receive Venture Capital Funding

If you’re an entrepreneur seeking funding, it pays to be male and attractive, according to a newly released study.

The investigative paper Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men, written by scholars at Wharton School, Harvard and MIT, established the gender and charisma of entrepreneurs have a noteworthy effect on whether their commercial ventures will receive financial support.

In more than a few experiments, the scholars established a “profound and persistent preference [by potential investors] for entrepreneurial ventures pitched by men, particularly attractive men.”

In the primary research set in a capitalist pitch competition, male businesspeople were 60 per cent more likely to attain pitch accomplishment when compared with their female counterparts. Among the male entrepreneurs, being exceptionally smart further increased the opportunities of accomplishment by 36 per cent, while no such result was shown for the female entrepreneurs.

In the subsequent research, participants heard pitches recounted by either a female or male businessperson and made a decision whether they would commit their funds in the venture. The male pitch was tremendously more likely to be given financial support over the female narration: 70 per cent opposed to 30 per cent.

The clincher was that both the female and male pitches were indistinguishable.

At the end of the day, when participating parties heard a pitch paired with the photograph of a good-looking male founder, they were much more expected to invest than when they were shown a not-so-charismatic founder. Additionally, charisma had little persuasion for female businesspeople.

Amazon Boss Denies New York Times Report On Toxic Work Culture

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has come out swinging in response to allegations in a New York Times article last weekend that claimed the “company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions”

Bezos said the “shockingly callous management practices” described in the article did not “ring true” with the company he knows and heads, and he wasted no time in shooting off a memo to all employees encouraging them to whistle blow on any kind of management behaviour outlined in the article, to either himself or to Amazon’s human resources department.

He wrote “The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”

The article quoted a former Amazon HR director describing Amazon’s office culture as “purposeful Darwinism” where workers who did not fit in for any reason were “culled annually.”
“Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out, rather than given time to recover,” reported the NYT.

The article also cited one former employee in Amazon’s book marketing department who said his enduring memory of his former workplace was of his work mates crying at their desks. “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” the former employee is quoted. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

Bezos’ memo to his employees read ” The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace were no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market”.

White House Plans To Push Treatment in Heroin Battle

As heroin deaths and overdoses increase in many parts of the country, the White House intends to unite law enforcement and public health in an attempt to shift the focus from penalty to the medical management of addicts.

Based on research originally financed for one year in 15 states from the D.C. area to New England, the initiative will pair drug intelligence officers with public health coordinators to mark out where heroin comes from, where and how it is being mixed with a lethal chemical addition, and who is bringing it to street-level dealers.

Two principal officials described the idea to The Washington Post on the condition of secrecy because the agenda was not scheduled to be made available until Monday.

The new plan is a reaction to a sharp increase in heroin consumption and deaths in many regions of the nation, particularly in New England and some of the Northeastern states where the research was conducted.

The new attempt, suggested by the New York/New Jersey High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area plan, one of 28 such federally funded law enforcement initiatives countrywide, seeks to concentrate on those challenges by hiring 15 health policy analysts and 15 drug intelligence officers who will gather overindulgence statistics, establish patterns and get relevant information about peddling trends to street-level.

According a senior White House official, “Our approach needs to be broad and inclusive.”  Explaining further, he said, “Law enforcement is only one part of what really needs to be a comprehensive public health, public safety approach.”

The Obama government proposed $133 million as part of new expenditure to curtail over-prescription of narcotic painkillers, the hard substances that have demonstrated to be the principal gateway to heroin use, and to increase the consumption of methadone and suboxone, narcotics that are utilized as more benign alternatives to wean addicted individuals off the influential urge to go back to heroin.

Comparatively, the $2.5 million that the white house is committing to the new program is a small financial commitment, but a principal law enforcement officer involved in crafting the latest strategy said the joining of police and public health staff is a principal step towards “both reducing crime and reducing the number of people who end up in emergency rooms.”

According to the senior officer, “If somebody from Brooklyn is arrested with heroin in Burlington, Vermont, we may not hear about it for months, when that information could allow us to see a trafficking pattern that lets us focus on who to go after.”

Public health statistics are often not extensively disseminated for a long time after the occurrences that create them. The proposal will let the law enforcement agencies and public health “to see where fentanyl-laced heroin is turning up, in real time, so we can react,” the senior official said.

The enforcement official said, “Heroin is killing people, and too often, public health goes one way and law enforcement goes the other. Often, grants create silos in government. This program is designed not to create any new agency but to bring people together to break out of those silos.”

Coaches Of Ole Miss And Mississippi State Join Push For Removal Of Confederate Flag From State Emblem

In the latest move by members on one side of the ever-increasing debate regarding the use of the Confederate emblem on state flags, several celebrities, business men and women, members of the community, and even SEC rival coaches all signed a letter published in the Clarion-Ledger requesting that the Confederate emblem be removed from the Mississippi state flag.

Mississippi remains the last state in the nation with the Confederate emblem flying over its capital. Although a 2001 vote to remove the emblem resulted in a 2 to 1 vote to keep the flag as is, many believe that 14 years is a long time and a lot has changed since 2001.

The debate over the Confederate emblem was most recently brought to the forefront following white supremacist Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine African-American members of a South Carolina church. Roof posted pictures of himself online burning an American flag and posing with the Confederate flag. In the wake of the massacre, Republican Alabama Governor Robert removed Confederate flags on the statehouse grounds and Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley successfully convinced lawmakers to to remove the Confederate flag flying over its state capital.

The letter published this morning included the signatures of John Grisham, Morgan Freeman, Jimmy Buffet, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, novelist Richard Ford, NBA Hall of Famer Bailey Howard, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, MI business leader Jack Reed, Sr., football royalty Archie Manning, and even SEC rival coaches – Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen.

The letter states that, “It is simply not fair, or honorable, to ask black Mississippians to attend schools, compete in athletic events, work in the public sector, serve in the National Guard, and go about their normal lives with a state flag that glorifies a war fought to keep their ancestors enslaved. It’s a time for Mississippi to fly a flag for all its people.”

While the removal of the Confederate emblem from the state flag has many supporters, there are also those who are quite against the change. Greg Stewart, administrator of Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, points out that, “Rap and hip-hop artists use the [Confederate battle] flag so that kind of sucks the wind out of the ‘offensive’ argument.”

He further stated his belief that the only way the flag would be changed is if “a raw power move [in the legislature occurred] in January, and they have to hope the public is stupid enough to forget, which they’re not going to do.” If a change will ever occur, “it has to come from the people, otherwise it’s going to cause more problems than it solves.”

Also supporting a non-change in the flag is state Senator Melanie Sojourner. “The flag was no more the ‘source of horrible acts against mankind than a gun is the ‘source’ of someone’s death. The ‘source’ is the hatred and evil that resides in the hearts of some who live and have lived among us. Simply placing the blame on something that some see as a symbol only perpetuates the problem.”

Proponents of the change are just as passionate about their side of the debate. Democrat State Senator David Jordan reminds people that, “There were 4 million African-American slaves under this [Confederate] flag. To us, it’s just as bad as the swastika.”

At this time, the Mississippi governor does not plan on holding a special vote to decide the issue. Whether or not that changes remains to be seen.

Researchers Grow Frustrated With Lack Of Science Guiding Our Nation’s Police Departments

With the recent incidents involving alleged police brutality and unjustified shooting of African-Americans happening across the nation, both law enforcement and scientists believe that the time for change in policing needs to happen now.

With police training, regulations and guidelines as varied as the number of police departments across the United States, gathering specific data or using consistent science across the board is challenging to say the least. What is sure, however, is that distrust is running both ways between law enforcement and the communities that they protect.

Police departments are not necessarily fans of change and rarely cooperate with outside scientific researchers. Alex Vitale, a sociologist at Brooklyn College, stated that, “In New York where I’ve done a lot of my work [in studying how police respond to protests], I can’t get anyone to talk to me.”

And when social science research shows that reform is absolutely needed, it is almost impossible to implement these changes in police academies and local police departments throughout the country.

One program that the United States Department of Justice believes could help mend the rift between law enforcement and communities is the Community Oriented Policing Services Program. In fact, the U.S.D.O.J. has spent more than $14 billion to support community policing initiatives.

The premise of the project is that the best way to decrease prejudice in officers is for them to personally interact with people who are different from themselves. For example, police officers usually only encounter black people when there is a crisis and they are responding to a crime. They rarely see these individuals and neighborhoods in positive situations.

The problem is that no one really knows how to accomplish the community policing initiatives. Research indicates that there is no clear evidence that the initiatives reduce crime or decrease the number of times police officers face black people in crisis situations. Therefore, the United States has spent $14 billion on an undefined program with undefined goals.

It is frustrating to researchers who have published dozens of studies showing that bias in police officers and the general public exists with respect to African-Americans. The U.S.D.O.J.’s investigation into the what happened at Ferguson found that law enforcement officers were twice as likely to search black people than white people during routine traffic stops, even though contraband was discovered 26% less often with black people. And, these often unconscious biases become more serious when deadly force takes place. A 2007 video game demonstrated that Denver police officers were faster to shoot African-Americans than white people.

Carl Bell, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has performed significant work on de-escalation with mentally ill individuals. He tried to introduce these de-escalation techniques to the Chicago P.D. but was not well-received. “There’s no systematic incorporation of research,” he states, and expressed his wish that such research was at least reviewed by police departments.

However, in light of the recent events illustrating the weaknesses in the law enforcement system, it appears that some police departments are seeing the light and opening their eyes towards outside scientific research. Charlotte Gill, a criminologist at George Mason University, points out that, “A perfect storm can be really disruptive but it can also create change.” She stated that a police department recently approached her to conduct a study and help the department, rather than vice versa. “It was really surprising to me. That rarely happens.”

Investigators Reportedly Find At Least 60 Classified Documents Sent From Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Server

Despite Hillary Clinton’s continuous denial, the State Department has reportedly found 60 messages sent from her personal email server that contained classified information.

The 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate has steadfastly maintained that she did not use her personal email to exchange government secrets.

The Washington Times published a report on Sunday detailing allegations by an anonymous government official that investigators had indeed found classified documents on the private email server.

Investigators from the State Department found one email with information classified at an intermediate level. All other emails were rated the lowest level of confidentiality.

Despite the findings, it will reportedly take months for the State Department to investigate the 30,000 emails that were sent from Clinton’s home server.

Claiming that the investigations were attacks from the right wing, Clinton said she never sent any classified material. At least to her knowledge.

On Sunday, she stated, “I never sent classified material on my e-mail, and I never received any that was marked classified.”

She continued her argument by saying the State Department has confirmed that no material marked as classified was sent or received by the former secretary of state.

Several critics point to the fact that Clinton wiped her server clean more than once before handing it over to investigators. This raises many questions as Clinton referred to her emails as being nothing but “talk of yoga and bridesmaids dresses.”

Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Benghazi Committee, questioned Clinton’s dismissal of the emails as insignificant as she simultaneously deleted them from her server.

Gowdy went on Fox News and said, “The more energy she put into cleansing or wiping the server clean, I think your viewers should take or infer from that, that perhaps there’s something on there she really didn’t want us to see.”

Clinton also turned over emails showing she was researching how to delete email permanently, making her claims seem less than truthful.

Russia’s Economy Is So Bad That Major Airlines Are Pulling Out Of The Country

As Russia’s economy continues to shrink and the ruble’s value drops precipitously, several international airlines are reducing their service to Russia as the number of people traveling plummets.

Most recently, Finnair said last week that, beginning in February, flights between Helsinki and Nizhny Novgorod would be temporarily suspended. Other airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Thai Airways International and Austrian-based Niki have cut flights to Russia altogether.
Airlines such as EasyJet, Air Berlin and Air France have all reduced the number of flights they offer or began using smaller planes.

Airlines of all sizes have been negatively impacted by the fall of the ruble. Just last year, against the U.S. dollar, the ruble lost 40% of its value. This is partly due to the drop in oil prices and partly because of biting sanctions levelled against the country for invading Ukraine.
International airlines price their tickets in foreign currency. As the ruble became less and less valuable, the prices offered by these international carriers became more expensive compared to Russian airlines, who price in rubles.

Travel within the country is also down significantly as Russians lack funds to take vacations.
According to Russia’s Federal Air Transportation Agency, the number of passengers flying to Moscow via international carriers dropped from 5.7 million to 4.6 million within a years period.
Airlines that continue to offer service to Russia have been focusing their flights on major hubs such as St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The trend of airlines reducing flights to Russia or canceling them altogether looks set to continue as Russia’s economy drops. With October marking the start of the low season for airlines, the situation will only worsen.

Delta, one of U.S. major air carriers announced that flights from Moscow will be suspended starting in October.

Trump Unveils Comprehensive Immigration Policy That Includes Massive Fence Paid For By Mexico

Donald Trump has laid out an interesting set of policy plans he intends to implement if he becomes Commander in Chief. They include the building of a multibillion dollar wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the abrupt ending of automatic citizenship for babies born in the U.S, and the periodic withdrawal of citizenships for millions of immigrants living and working in the U.S.

Trump, in a six page paper outlining his policy on immigration, has all but sanctioned the mass eviction of immigrants from the U.S. The policy paper, which would affect millions of families and businesses if implemented, has sparked a raw nerve in many hearts, including those of Latinos, African-Americans and other minorities.

One section of paper details how Trump will build a multi-million dollar wall between the U.S. – Mexico border, one that he says the Mexican government will pay for. According to the celebrity billionaire, he would strong arm the Mexican government with tactics including the impounding of cross border remittance payments, the hiking of fees for work visas on Mexican chief executives and diplomats, even cancelling them altogether, and finally hiking of fees for border crossing cards.

In the paper, Trump emphatically states, “The Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.”

Trump’s immigration policy continues to include details on how he would end the job visas of foreign students, defund sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants, triple the number of U.S. immigration personnel, suspend granting of green cards completely until more Americans enter the workforce and even end automatic citizenship for babies born in the U.S.

Immigration groups have come out strongly to ridicule and castigate the flamboyant candidate.

One group has said the proposals were a “nativist wish-list of ugly proposals” that would leave ”a moral stain on the fabric of this nation.”

Other groups have claimed the moves proposed were unconstitutional, against the 14th Ammendment of the U.S. Constitution and would most certainly cripple the U.S. economy.

Trump was unbowed and unapologetic. In an interview with NBC, he said, “They have to go. Either we have a country or we don’t.”

Though Trump’s verbose antics are striking many in the wrong way, he remains ahead in polling. A recent poll by Fox News shows Trump leading the Republican race with 25 per cent against closest rival former surgeon Ben Carson with 12 per cent.

The Republican front runner has rubbed many the wrong way with his outrageous proclamations and now, policy paper.

However, if the recent polls giving him a double digit lead over other candidates is anything to go by, we will be seeing more of Trump in the coming months of campaigning. The Donald is here to stay.

‘Drinkable Book’ Offers Creative Solution To World’s Water Shortage

In a breakthrough development that could bring safe drinking water to villagers in third-world countries across the world, people actually may use the pages of special books to filter bacteria-infested water.

The “drinkable book,” created by Dr. Teri Dankovich, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, developed and tested the book’s technology for the past several years. Noting that 663 million people across the globe do not have access to clean drinking water, the technology is “directed towards communities in developing countries.”

The pages of these amazing books contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which kill bacteria living in the water as it passes through. Dankovich completed 25 trials in South Africa where he tested water from different contaminated water sources.

Filtering water through the book’s pages resulted in the successful removal of 99% of bacteria, making the water similar to that of United States tap water. While tiny amounts of silver or copper dripped into the water, the levels were well within the limits of safe drinking water.

Dankovich instructed that, “All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells, etc., and out comes clean water – and dead bacteria as well. Ions come off the surface of the [silver or copper] nanoparticles, and those are absorbed by the [bacterial] microbes.” Essentially, the bugs absorb the silver or copper ions as they travel through the page.

It was after several years of work and success in the lab that Dankovich took his research overseas. Over the past two years, he worked with the charities Water is Life and iDE to test the technology in the field. In the field trials, most of the water samples were cleared of greater than 99% of the bacteria. In most samples, the bacteria levels dropped to 0%.

Dankovich acknowledged that the drinkable book only works if people know how to properly use it. The book itself contains instructions on how to successfully and safely filter water from contaminated sources.

“Overall, out of all the technologies that are available – ceramic filters, UV sterilization and so on – this is a promising one, because it’s cheap, and it’s a catchy idea that people can get hold of and understand.”

One drinkable book can filter about 25 gallons of water, an average African villager’s drinking supply for four years.

Apple Music Sees 25 Million Streams Of New Dr. Dre Album In First Week

According to stats released by Apple, Dr. Dre’s newest album has seen over 25 million streams in its first week. “Compton: A Soundtrack” is exclusively available through Apple and iTunes Music. The highly anticipated album also sold half a million times on iTunes.

This new album has been long awaited as loyal fans have seen 16 years pass since Dr. Dre’s last release. “Compton: A Soundtrack” includes 16 songs and features collaborations from Ice Cube, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and more. The success of this album through Apple is helping the company to promote Apple Music for artists.

In an interview with the New York Times, Jimmy Iovine stated, “We’re beginning to show what we can do in terms of communicating music to a worldwide audience and helping artists at the same time.” Jimmy Iovine,the co founder of Beats Electronics, later joined Apple when they acquired Beats for $3 billion last year.

Within the first week, the U.S. alone accounted for 11 million streams of the new album. By making use of Apple Music’s free trial, users can listen to the album as many times as they please without charge.

Despite its overwhelming success on iTunes, “Compton: A Soundtrack” isn’t expected to reach the top album spot on Billboard’s list. The chart is released today and country singer Luke Bryan is expected to top the list with the song “Kill the Lights”.

Fans may see the success of Dre’s new album increase significantly in a few weeks after the iTunes exclusivity runs out.
The Cupertino company has rights on the album for the first two weeks. After that, the album will be released from countless retailers and online markets which should increase its success.

Deadly Explosion Rips Apart Bangkok, Killing Scores

A deadly bomb exploded in Thailand’s Capital Bangkok on Monday evening, killing a dozen people including tourists and injuring another 78. The blast tore through the country that has seen widespread anti-government protests in the past, causing many to wonder whether the ghosts of the country’s past have returned to haunt them.

The bomb went off just outside Erawan Shrine, a popular Hindu shrine dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma. The site is a popular tourist destination, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Government Spokesman Maj. Gen. Weerachon Sukhondhapatipak said the blast involved a “motorcycle bomb.”

Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwong said, “It was a TNT bomb… the people who did it targeted foreigners and to damage tourism and the economy.”

Initial reports indicate the scene was strewn with body parts everywhere and there was a visible crater where the bomb had gone off.

The explosion blasted apart the Rajprasong intersection, completely destroying it. Motorcycles parked along the intersection were ripped apart.

“There are body parts strewn in the intersection,” said Steven Herman from Voice of America.
Dozens of ambulances were called to the scene to ferry the injured to hospital.

Police have indicated that 78 people were injured by the blast. Thai media reported that a number of those injured were tourists.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Later reports indicated that a second bomb was found at the scene of the explosion. The vigilant police quickly secured it.

National Police Chief Prawut Thawornsiri said, “We are now looking for another two to three bombs as we have found one suspicious object. There could be another explosion, so we have blocked off the crime scene and are asking bystanders to move back.”

Richard Sri-kureja, a bystander at the scene told the BBC, “There was total chaos. That area is usually very, very crowded as it’s in the middle of the city and it’s usually very packed. A local hotel is full of injured patients.”

Thailand’s government experienced a military coup in May 2014. The country’s government was dissolved and in its place a military dominated national legislature was put. The military legislature elected General Prayut Chan-o-cha to serve as the country’s Prime Minister. Prayut has ruled with an iron fist, cracking down on dissent and completely banning criticism of his government.

Thailand is only just recovering from years of anti government protests. Though no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, the recent explosion will complicate the recovery process for the country.

While Food and Medicine Shortages Plague Venezuela Chávez Offspring Party

As well as inheriting the family name of her infamous father, Venezuelan dictator and supposed socialist Hugo Chávez, his favorite daughter Maria Gabriela Chávez also received billions of dollars of his accumulated wealth and the controversy that surrounded it.

According to an investigative article in the latest edition of the publication Diario Las Americas, which cites bank statements and expert asset analysis, Ms Chávez is the wealthiest person in poverty ridden Venezuela, with a net worth of $4.2 billion.

Maria Gabriela, the second eldest of the four children Chávez acknowledged, was the dictator’s favorite and was even appointed first lady when he divorced.

As well as inheriting billions from her father, Chávez reportedly recently made $15 million profit selling rice at inflated prices–in a country where average Venezuelans spend hours lining up for basic goods, due to a socialist rationing system imposed to supposedly counter implemented hyperinflation.

There are shortages of the most basic food items such as milk and vegetable oil, leading to riots in various parts of the country, with one last week resulting in the death of a warehouse worker.
According to Fox News Latino, Chávez is wealthier that Lorenzo Mendoza, the head of one of the country’s largest companies, Polar Foods and Beverages, who current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has criticized for being a “bigwig” and whose facilities he has “nationalized”.
Maduro himself is also considered very wealthy, though nothing in comparison to the Chávez offspring.

While he publicly supports the Chávez family, President Maduro has reportedly had several run ins with them. Maria Gabriela and older sister Rosa Virginia against his will, still reside in the presidential palace which the Chávez siblings have turned into “an entertainment club for their friends”.

Maduro has tried to get them to leave the palace many times, with his latest attempt being naming Maria Gabriela as an “alternate permanent ambassador” to the United Nations based in New York.
While Venezuela’s socialist government finds money to keep the lavish lifestyle of the Chávez family going, the general population struggle to find food and medicines just to live.

A recent article quoting the head of a major hospital in Caracas, said 60 percent of cancer patients will soon not be able to receive treatment because 20 drugs used in chemotherapy are running out.

Another report said the number of amputations has skyrocketed because there are not adequate supplies of antibiotics medicines to treat limb injuries.

Russia Bans U.S. Wines In Retaliation For Ukraine Related Sanctions

The United States wine industry has been banned is the latest target of Russia’s retaliatory moves against countries that have placed sanctions on it for its invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian ‘consumer rights group’ Rospotrebnadzor today announced it is banning three types of wine from the U.S. , which join a growing list of food products from western countries that have been banned in recent months.

The American wines banned as from today are Gnarly Head Chardonnay, from Delicato Family Vineyards;  Geyser Peak Merlot, produced at Geyser Peak Winery; and Crane Lake Moscato, from Crane Lake Cellars.

Rospotrebnadzor cited “excess levels of phthalic acid and pesticides” as the reason for the bans, a move aimed at influencing broader consumer perceptions of the American products.

A statement on Rospotrebnadzor’s website said “Phthalic acid … can cause functional and organic changes in the central and peripheral nerve system… also oncological illnesses and fertility problems in men and women,”

Last week Rospodtrebnadzor banned canned fish from Poland, while earlier this month it placed bans on imported food from Iceland, Liechtenstein, Albania and Montenegro.  

These Russian counter-sanctions have previously included  Norway, Canada, and Australia as well as the 28 European Union member states, and include fish, meat, fish, fruit and vegetables and dairy products.

Experts say that although there is no doubt some of the bans have had an adverse effect on the export earnings of several countries, especially those that have traditionally been Russia’s largest trading partners, they were also having a negative effect within Russia.

The bans have resulted in food shortages in many parts of Russia, causing discontent and fears of a return to cold war era queues for food.

Uber Faces Stiff Asian Competition As Rival GrabTaxi Raises $400 Million

Uber’s challenges in China go beyond the country’s boundaries: one of its chief competitors in Southeast Asia recently raised a stunning $400 million in a financing round sponsored by China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.

The $740 billion fund, China Investment Corporation, was the principal financier in Singapore-based GrabTaxi’s newest round, boosting the value of the South East Asian taxi app at an approximated US$1.8 billion.

The taxi-hailing app, GrabTaxi operates in 22 cities in six countries in Southeast Asia, and intends to utilize its new funds to further grow in the region.

The app is not the CIC’s first foray into the cab-hailing industry.

Last month, the fund participated in Chinese industry leader Didi Kuaidi’s record-breaker $2 billion investment round, which placed the firm’s worth at $15 billion.

Though the Chinese app currently commands 90 per cent of the local cab-hailing industry, it has had to deal with stiff competition from US-based Uber, which recently allocated$1 billion for additional expansion in China.

Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick reported in June that China was the number one priority for their global team.

However, the growth has not come without problems.

In May the corporation’s official quarters in Chengdu and Guangzhou were invaded by the authorities, and it has sparked protests from cab drivers who blame the app of introducing unfair competition in the business.

The public turbulence spilled over into Hong Kong early this month.

Police officers raided Uber’s offices in Hong Kong and arrested two employees. They also detained a number of Uber cab drivers for running business without a car-hire license and operating without appropriate insurance.

The decision came after a number of charged protests organized and executed by cab drivers in the city in the past few months against such apps as Uber.

Last week, Uber struck back with an intensive public relations crusade, attracting about 50,000 signatures to an appeal supporting its operations in Hong Kong.

On Sunday, the city’s Consumer Council leader Wong Yuk-shan reported the supervisory body will scrutinize the cab app industry, cautioning that there was an insurance problem involved in utilizing car-hailing services.

Uber has constantly insisted that its drivers have satisfactory insurance.

Smash Hit ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Highlights Both Changing American Attitudes And Same Old Problems

In one of the biggest surprises at the box office this summer, “Straight Outta Compton” was the number one movie of the weekend, bringing in a whopping $56.1 million, just about doubling its production budget of $29 million.

The movie, which took over a decade to make, is a biopic of the founders of N.W.A, a gansta rap group started in the Los Angeles area in the ‘80s by rappers Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella. The movie features a predominantly African American cast, including O’Shea Junior, playing his real life dad, Ice Cube.

Universal’s marketing and production efforts with respect to the movie were obviously right on target, as the movie played extremely well across the country. According to the studio, approximately 46% of moviegoers were African-American, 23% were white, 21% were Hispanic, and other at 10%.

N.W.A’s songs were inflammatory for the times and created tensions between African Americans and law enforcement everywhere.

In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Dr. Dre pointed out that, “It’s crazy how we were getting criticized for this years ago. And now, it’s just like, ‘OK, we understand.’ This movie will keep shining a light on the problem, especially because of all the situations that are happening in Ferguson and here in Los Angeles. It’s definitely going to keep this situation in people’s minds and make sure that everyone out there knows that this is a problem that keeps happening still today.”

Ice Cube echoes the sentiment and proffered that, “It was always about free speech, being able to express yourself, whether people like it or not. That’s the great thing about being in this country, is to be able to speak your mind and not be censored.”

While a lot has changed in the thirty years since the group began rapping about the trials of living in the inner city, a lot has remained the same.

While there is still police brutality and race riots taking place across the country, a major, powerhouse studio felt it could successfully produce a film about the controversial group – something that would have never happened in the ‘80s. Somewhere between the ’80s and now, it became a good idea to make a movie about N.W.A, who wrote songs with titles like “F*** the Police,” and “One Less Bitch.”

As aptly stated in the Hollywood Reporter, “The group went from being public enemy No. 1 to marketable mainstream entertainment in multiplexes in every neighborhood in the country.”

Donna Langley, chief of Universal, responded to criticism that the movie would not play well across the globe and explained that, “[She] would argue that everybody knows hip-hop. There probably isn’t a culture in the world that doesn’t engage with [rap] in some way. We were looking through that lens, as opposed to handicapping it as an ‘urban’ film.”

When talking about N.W.A’s relevance today, Ice Cube stated that, “It shows that we were not only ahead of our time, but right on time. It’s a constant situation between the powers that be and the neighborhoods we’ve come from. And most of the time you look and you see that it’s a thing where someone is abusing their authority or abusing their power and they’re s***ing around.” Langley agrees with Ice Cube’s sentiments that, “there are things in the movie playing themselves out in the news today.”

When asked if today’s law enforcement would appreciate the movie, Ice Cube responds that, “Oh, they’re gonna love it. True story. Inspired by them. I mean, why wouldn’t they love it? It’s what they do. They’re not misrepresented. True that.”

North Korea Launches Its Own Loudspeaker After U.S. Exercises Enrage Kim Jong-Un

North Korea’s threat of retaliation with “tremendous muscle” against the U.S. for taking part in military exercises was restricted to jaw muscles only as the retaliation turned out to be blasted propaganda messages.

Just hours before the exercises began North Korea had threatened to “retaliate with tremendous muscle” if they were not cancelled. The joint U.S. and South Korean lead military exercises were described by both countries as an annual event designed to test military response readiness and also ensure Korean Peninsula stability.

A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said although the retaliation threats had not been taken too seriously, they had introduced somewhat of a realistic edge into the exercises with both the U.S and South Korean military taking “precautions” .

As the exercises were to begin, the first blasted propaganda messages started with:  “The army and people of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) are no longer what they used to be in the past when they had to counter the U.S. nukes with rifles,” and then went on to describe North Korea’s military as  “the invincible power equipped with both the latest offensive and defensive means unknown to the world ” .

Although the propaganda blasting can be viewed as bizarre, it is not a new phenomena as only last week South Korea, after an absence of ten years, resumed the psychological warfare campaign using similar broadcast tactics in what it said was in retaliation to a August  landmine blasts that seriously injured two of its soldiers.

Although North Korea has denied it had planted the landmines on a South Korean patrol route in the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries, the United Nations Command said its investigation found it had.

A week after the landmine incident, South Korea started its propaganda broadcasts, angering North Korea, which threatened to destroy the huge loud speakers its neighbor had set up in the the demilitarized zone.

The demilitarized zone was established at the end of the Korean War in 1953. No formal peace treaty was signed at the time so technically North and South Korea have remained at war.

The joint military exercises include New Zealand, Australia, Columbia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the U.S. and run till August 28th.

Georgia Aquarium Fights To Put More Rare Whales On Display

In a case that is being watched by people across the country, the Georgia Aquarium and the United States government faced off in court on Friday over whether 18 beluga whales should be imported from Russia.

The Georgia Aquarium claims that importing these whales, which are presently living in the Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station in Russia is crucial to increase research and education opportunities. Conversely, the government claims that the import of the whales would be detrimental to the natural population of beluga whales in the waters surrounding Russia.

Both animal conservation/activist groups and zoos and aquariums across the nation are anxiously awaiting the judge’s decision in this case as it could have consequences related to housing animals in captivity in the future.

The Georgia Aquarium applied for a permit to import the beluga whales from Russia in 2012. The United States agency that grants and denies permits allowing the import of marine animals into the country is called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Services, known as NOAA Fisheries.

The agency initially indicated that it was planning on granting the permit, but then changed its mind purportedly without explanation. The agency stated that it did in fact lean toward granting the application but upon further review, it determined that the aquarium did not meet the standards required for importing the whales.

The hearing on Friday demonstrated that each side believes the other side doctored facts about the natural population numbers of the whales and that they attempted to fudge truths regarding the animals.

The law governing the import of the animals is the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and it prohibits the capture of marine mammals by United States citizens across the globe with a few exceptions. It allows animals to be captured and imported for public display by applicants meeting certain standards.

The particular standard the NOAA Fisheries claimed that the aquarium did not meet was the “potential biological removal standard” which deals with the maximum number of animals that can be removed from a population without damaging the population. The aquarium stated that it provided ample data supporting that it met this standard while the government said it did not.

Aquarium officials state that, “Beluga whales are in trouble. Our ability to have these animals in our care to be able to study and observe them is critically important.”

George Mannina, the aquarium’s attorney, stated that, “The standards [applied to] the Georgia Aquarium have been applied to no one else, they invented data, they manipulated data and they were completely arbitrary and capricious. The judge should find for the Georgia Aquarium.”

Opponents to the importation of the whales heartily disagree. Courtney Vail of the Whale Dolphin Conservation stated that, “The aquarium unfortunately is contributing to the depletion of this population back in Russia. That’s not conservation.”

In response to these assertions, Georgia Aquarium officials stated that, “One of the reasons people care so much about beluga whales is because you’ve seen them in zoological facilities over the years and you’ve had the chance to make an important emotional connection with these animals.”

Both parties likely will have to wait a long time to know which side prevails. The judge’s decision could take six months or longer.

UK Proposes Jail Sentences For File Sharers That Are Longer Than Those Of Rapists

Legal activists and professionals are strongly opposing a UK government recommendation to extend the maximum sentence for internet piracy from two to ten years.

The experts argue that the suggested extension is ineffective, disproportionate and subjects casual file-sharers to long jail terms.

The UK government intends to extend the maximum sentence to 10 years because lawmakers argue that the present jail term is not adequate to deter copyright infringers.

The latest suggestion follows a recommendation forwarded by the Big Media influenced UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) earlier this year.

The research, which conflicts with rigorous academic studies on the issue, established that the criminal sanctions for the infringement of copyrights obtainable under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) should be altered to align them with the related crimes, such as forgery.

Before debating the proposals, the government established a public consultation, seeking advice and comments. Though the responses have yet to be published, two factions have loudly opposed the extension of the jail term.

The British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) gave a copy of their recommendations to various media outlets. The group’s major point is that amendments to the existing law are unnecessary.

Explaining that the new sentence would be too harsh, the group writes, “…legitimate means to tackle large-scale commercial online copyright infringement are already available and currently being used, and the suggested sentence of 10 years seems disproportionate.”

Arguing that the recommendations are infeasible, unaffordable and incompatible the European Convention on Human Rights, BILETA writes, “The freedom of expression may be interfered with if there is a ‘pressing social need’ and is proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.”

The Open Rights Group is another notable organization opposed to the government’s proposal. Jim Killock, the Executive Director, said that the administration imprecisely suggests that only large commercial offenders will be affected by the amendment.

“The proposal wraps up businesses and people who ‘affect prejudicially’ a copyright owner,” Killock notes. “There is no requirement of intent to harm, merely that the user should have known that they were violating copyright law. This makes the offense a ‘strict liability’, which is rare,” he adds.

Expressing the vagueness of the recommendations, Open Rights Group notes, “We believe it creates scope to abuse the law. It is hard to know what ‘prejudicial effect’ is. It is hard to estimate damages from online sharing or access. The fact that someone did not seek to harm a copyright owner is no defense.”

Killock adds, “The result is that people who are not really criminals, but are rather just naive users, may face punitive claims. At the very least, the risk of criminal claims means naive infringers can be pushed into accepting heavy punishments to remove the risk of long jail sentences.”

The discussion is open until next Monday and the administration will publicize the personal comments and circulate a review report afterwards.

Boko Haram Leader Shekau Rises From The Dead According To New Audio

A new audio message from Abubakar Shekau, the leader of African terror group Boko Haram, denied reports that he is dead, saying that he is still alive and running the Islamic extremist group.

Site Intelligence, a social media monitoring company, quoted another message recorded and released by Shekau refuting reports that he lacked the ability to serve as leader of the terrorist sect.

According to security sources, the military of Nigeria has made several claims that Shekau had been killed over the last few years.

However Shekau keeps resurfacing in new recordings, something that has kept people in the security forces wondering whether the “killed” people could be imposters using Shekau’s name.

Shekau’s last public video appearance was in February, when an individual claiming to be the Boko Haram leader – analysts maintain he may have been an impostor – made threats of disrupting Nigeria’s general elections held in March.

Boko Haram has publicized more than five visual recordings since that time, but Shekau has appeared in none of them.

According to a Reuters tally, since Buhari’s inauguration as the president of the country on May 29, suspected members of Boko Haram have caused the deaths of more than 600 people in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in a series of shootings and bombings.

Attempts to come to an agreement to finish the spate of violent activities, including last year’s deal sponsored by neighboring Chad, have constantly failed during the six-year mutiny instigated by the terrorist group in its efforts to establish an independent state in the northeastern region strictly observing Islamic laws and guidelines.

Why Western Muslims Trade Comfortable Lives For Terrorism

As author Samuel Huntington stated “As the pace of modernization increases, however, the rate of Westernization declines and the indigenous culture goes through a revival.”

While this seems impossible, much of the Muslim world holds religious and cultural values that are directly opposed to those of an American or a European making integration between the two factions quite difficult.

According to historian Bernard Lewis, in Islam and the West, the Islamic restoration is guided by a feeling of “revulsion against the West, frustration at the whole new apparatus of public and private life.”

Lewis says it is this “vision of a restored and resurgent Islam, through which God’s law and those who uphold it would prevail over all their enemies.”

Writing in The New York Times last week Roger Cohen commented, “The honest answer is that we don’t know why a 20-something Briton with a degree in computer engineering or a young Frenchman from a Norman village reaches a psychological tipping point.”

It is a fundamental Islamic philosophy – Islamism – which is being slotted into the brains of would-be jihadists from their clergy or the internet.

Commenting on Cohen’s argument – that the western Jihadists are “yearning to be released from the burden of freedom,” – Daniel Pipes, scholar and president of the Middle East Forum think tank, said, “I disagree.”

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Pipes said, “The establishment’s analysis of Islamism suffers from an inattention to the power of ideas. Neo-Marxist efforts to blame economic deprivation ruled for a while but shattered on the rocks of inaccuracy.”

Explaining further, Pipes said, “The simple explanation is that the Islamist vision – like the fascist and communist visions before it – has compelling attraction, especially for educated youths who seek to devote themselves to a great cause.”

According to Pipes, the difficulty for those opposing the Islamist movement is to marginalize and defeat this dream so that Islamism – again, like totalitarianism and socialism before it – loses its attraction.

Philip Carl Salzman, an expert on Arab ethnic culture and a professor of anthropology at McGill University feels that Muslims immigrating in large numbers to Europe have not been able to take in the European culture.

Salzman went on to say “Young Muslims see Islamic State and al-Qaida as successfully and openly implementing Muslim principles, such as enslavement and murder of infidels that are difficult to apply in Europe.”

In his concluding remarks, Salzman said, “Above all, they see Islamic State and al-Qaida as conquerors, which is what their Muslim ancestors were, and which would provide them with the honor and glory that they feel Muslims deserve.”

Chinese Censors Close 50 Websites For Talking About The Tianjin Explosion

The Cyberspace Administration of China has shuttered 50 websites for spreading “rumors” on the number of deaths and casualties in the Tianjin explosions.

According to Xinhua, a state news outlet, the number of confirmed deaths stands at 112 with 95 still missing after the dangerous explosion that occurred last week in a chemical warehouse.

The Chinese cyberspace administration has closed down many media that have reported different and inaccurate versions of the events arguing that such ‘rumors’ were likely to “manufacture panic … resulting in adverse social panic.”

According to the administration, 18 websites have had their licenses revoked, 32 others have been suspended for a month and 360 social media accounts have been blocked indefinitely.

The state newspaper report about the suspensions and closures runs under the cheerful headline “Websites punished for spreading rumors about Tianjin blasts”.

China is not known to be enthusiastic on un-vetted bad news being made available to the public, so the word “rumors” has a tough negative implication.

For the time being, the formal line about the Tianjin tragedy, delivered by President Xi Jinping himself, is that they symbolize an awful breakdown of workplace safety.

Executives are also starting to imply that the warehouse kept more hazardous substances than it was permitted to store, a suggestion that corruption may have had a role in the event.

President Xi has long campaigned against bribery at all levels of the Chinese government.

People living within a two mile radius of the explosion zone have been evacuated following reports that hundreds of tons of the highly toxic chemical sodium cyanide were involved in the blast.

China’s National Supercomputer Center is approximately one mile from the scene of the incident.

The Tianhe-1 supercomputer was taken offline just after the blast. While it is still not clear if the supercomputer has resumed work, with the two mile radius requirement, it appears set to stay offline for some time.

The Pentagon Just Approved A Radical Space Plane That Can Launch 10 Times In 10 Days

America is getting back in the space plane business after it recently emerged that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program has completed the first stage of its design competition and is proceeding to stage two.

The agency awarded $20 million to three aerospace firms to continue development of the cutting edge spacecraft.

Boeing, Masten Space Science Systems, and Northrop Grumman will each continue development of their designs which are expected to be completed by August 2016. Following DARPA’s choice for a prototype, a first flight is expected as early as 2018.

The designs under consideration for the program are quite similar in appearance to the Boeing X-37, a top secret reusable unmanned spacecraft that is already operational, having completed its fourth mission in May 2015.

Yet the similarities are mostly cosmetic, with the X-37 operating as an orbital vehicle that travels from the launchpad into orbit with one rocket, and the XS-1 functioning as just one stage in the transportation of the payload into space.

The X-37 is widely believed to be a ‘hunter killer’ spacecraft, capable of radical orbit changes that allow it to destroy or capture orbiting satellites.

The XS-1’s propulsion system is expected to be a hypersonic engine capable of speeds up to Mach 10, and upon reaching that speed it will then deploy an expendable rocket to carry the payload into orbit.

Other requirements of the DARPA design competition are that the spaceplane be capable of operating 10 times in 10 days at less than $5 million per flight, and the ability to launch a payload of between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds.

These design goals for flight frequency and cost are many orders of magnitude better than what existing systems are capable of achieving.

The purposes of such a vastly improved space delivery system could include strengthening U.S. capability for a potential space war.

The disabling of satellites could dramatically impact a nation’s capability for surveillance and communications, both critical capabilities.

The U.S. maintains a position of defense regarding the possibility of a space conflict, as Commander of Air Force Space Command General John Hyten stated, “We have a responsibility to defend against all threats. That’s what our job is… There is no doubt we have seen threats appear in the last decade, and we have prepared to respond to those threats.”

The potential debris from a conflict waged in orbit could cripple future space exploration as Earth becomes surrounded by the remains of destroyed satellites. In 2007, China tested one of its anti-satellite missiles in order to eliminate one of its unusable satellites, resulting in 3,000 new pieces of debris that now orbit the Earth.

Tesla’s Model S Will Now Valet Park Itself At The Push Of A Button

Google and Apple aren’t the only ones working on self driving cars. A select group of Tesla Model S owners will soon be beta testing the company’s first iteration of its Autopilot software.

The software release, known as Autopilot 7.0, is actually the latest iteration of the already installed driver assistance program that relies on the sedan’s forward facing camera/radar as well as its 360 degree sonar system.

One of the main goals of the release is to gauge user reaction to the presence of such a system and its interface as Tesla pursues the long-term goal of a driverless car.

The system will be able to handle lane keeping, vehicle spacing, and braking and acceleration tasks, but will still require a driver present to monitor the system’s performance as well as make turn signal indications.

One of the constraints on those participating in the beta test is their vow not to speak to anyone about the system. Though some have compared Tesla’s Autopilot to existing driver-assist technology present on Mercedes’ Intelligent Drive System, a new feature is Tesla’s summoning ability, in what might be thought of as a “virtual valet.”

Drivers will be able to command the car to approach their side at the push of a button, a feature that Tesla specifies should only be used on private property in order to avoid legal issues.

With self-driving cars one of the company’s long-term goals, CEO Elon Musk gave an estimate on the comparative safety that would have to be offered by such a system, “Probably we’d want Autopilot to be at least statistically 10 times safer than a person.”

If all goes well during the beta test, Tesla plans on a wider roll out later in the year.

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick has declared that he would purchase all of Tesla’s cars if they were to be totally self-driving by 2020. As competing automakers develop their own offerings of autonomous vehicles, Kalanick’s idea is but one possibility for making an impact in the dawning age of driverless cars.

Ranchers Go High Tech To Fight Growing Number Of Cattle Thefts

As cattle prices reach record levels, the potential for cattle theft across America has risen with them. The increasingly positive economics of so-called ‘cattle rustling’ means the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) retains 30 Special Rangers for the purpose of pursuing the approximately 1,000 such cases that occur annually.

Because Texas does not mandate branding of cattle, rustlers often pursue these type of cattle as they are more difficult to prove stolen. The thefts are often used to fund drug habits, according to Doug Hutchison, one of the TSCRA’s Special Rangers. Numbers for recovery of stolen cattle with brands or markings are around 80% with that number dropping to 35% for unmarked animals.

Although prices are at record levels, the amount of cattle being raised is at its lowest level in 60 years, with some 90 million head of cattle or calves in 2015. Last year’s number of stolen livestock reached almost 5,800, the highest level in five years.

The Special Rangers handled 800 theft cases in 2014, with this year’s statistics looking to be similar. One of the largest recent cases involved a Texas man charged with stealing 544 steers valued at $800,000.

Hutchison’s most effective weapon may be his smartphone, which he uses to photograph livestock at cattle auctions in the search for possible offenders. Rustlers often don’t travel more than 100 miles before attempting to sell their bounty , Hutchison says, “Those thieves are too lazy to work.”

Because the nature of raising cattle involves large plots of land used for the grazing of animals, there can be many opportunities for thieves.

One solution that is well-suited to combating the problem are RFID chip implants for livestock identification. The technology is a dramatic improvement over branding and physical tagging, with some systems capable of reading over 80 RFID tags per minute.