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Landmark Settlement Means Banks Can Be Held Liable For Helping Terrorists Move Money

The surviving victims of terrorist attacks cannot easily challenge their perpetrators in a courtroom, but the banks that finance their operations are now fair game.

In Brooklyn, New York, a damages trial was to take place following last year’s ruling that Arab Bank was guilty of financing terrorism by processing transactions of Hamas members, whom are classified as terrorists under U.S. law.

The case is the first of its kind, and could impact the manner in which banks scrutinize their potential customers.

American plaintiffs agreed to a settlement before the trial could be heard, but the Federal District Court in Brooklyn had previously found Arab Bank liable for supporting 22 terrorist acts.

Bank executives are troubled by the precedent because Arab Bank claimed to have followed standard screening procedures concerning the possibility that its customers could be terrorists.

The fear is that banks may begin to refrain from doing businesses in unstable countries, which could be a self-reinforcing policy as the lack of a banking sector causes greater instability.

The claims that were settled all fell under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act passed in 1990, which allows American victims of terrorism abroad to sue for damages in federal court.

The settlement covered the claims of some 500 plaintiffs, which included those involving terrorist groups other than Hamas. The plaintiffs’ case revolved around armed attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Arab Bank’s defense maintains that all accounts that it approved were checked against terrorist blacklists, and the transactions that were able to get through were due to clerical errors, such as differences in spelling between Arabic and English.

A specific case involved $60,000 transferred to Hamas member Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as a result of a spelling mistake. Other banks that now face similar claims in U.S. courts include HSBC, Bank of China, Credit Lyonnais, and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Meet The ‘Jewish Schindler’ Who’s Crowdfunding Project Has Rescued Over 100 ISIS Sex Slaves

A Canadian businessman has coordinated the release of 128 Yazidi and Christian girls from sexual slavery at the hands of Islamic State militants, through a project that aims to save many more.

Steve Maman, dubbed the “Jewish Schindler,” raised more than $200,000 to pay for the release of the captives during the past year.

In the coming days his organization will free 10 more.

Maman said he felt compelled to act after watching the brutal ISIS regime sweep through parts of Iraq and Syria last August.

“It’s a level of barbarism which was on another level of persecution,” said the 42 year old father of six.

Over 5,000 Yazidis were executed, often en masse, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Thousands of women and girls spared from death were instead sold into sexual servitude according to UN reports.

Canon Andrew White, who headed one of the largest churches in Baghdad, helped to connect Maman with negotiators and navigate Iraq’s web of tribal networks to forge contacts at the ISIS slave markets.

“He is somebody who is really like a brother. He’s the first person who’s come to our aid,” White said.

steve-maman

Maman, a crystal wholesaler and classic cars dealer, launched the Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI) and called on his business contacts and friends in the Jewish community for donations to his project.

He worked his industry connections in Baghdad to reach hostage negotiators and government officials who could help facilitate the rescues.

Things began to trend rapidly upward after he launched a GoFundMe account last month with a target of raising half a million dollars. He’s now looking to raise $5 million after the overwhelming response.

The money makes its way through front-line brokers, who take a massive cut, then on to Islamic State combatants in the mountain ranges of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Each girl costs between $1,000 and $3,000, and most have suffered violent sexual and physical abuse.

According to Maman about 2,700 young women remain Islamic State slaves. “If we get half of them, we’ll be lucky,” he said.

Maman credits Oskar Schindler, the German factory owner who saved 1,200 Jewish lives during the Holocaust, as his source of inspiration.

“He’s a hero not just to me but to every human being,” Maman said.

Maman’s GoFundMe page can be viewed here

While Trump Steals Headlines Bush Fights Back With $10 Million Ad Buy

While Donald Trump’s straight talking dominates the media his Republican contenders aren’t sitting on the sidelines. According to reports over the weekend the super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will spend a whopping $10 million on a major TV ad campaign beginning next month.

The buy is the first for the campaign and highlights that while Trump steals attention the Bush political machine is methodically grinding away behind the scenes, preparing for a long and drawn out fight.

A spokesman for Bush’s Right to Rise PAC confirmed that the group will air ads in the critical early voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa on September 15th, and then begin ads in South Carolina the week after.

The commercials will focus heavily on promoting the former Florida governor’s political record and will run until December.

The strategy appears to be focusing on Bush as a competent, well tested leader who can transition from one high office to another, something chief rival Donald Trump can’t claim.

Bush spent the first half of the year soliciting donations for the super PAC, raising more than $100 million, an unprecedented sum of money for this early in a presidential campaign. The stunning amount shows how determined Bush is and also underscores his wide backing amongst GOP donors.

There was no word from the Trump camp about how it plans to respond but it will likely counter the ads to some degree, while continuing to use Trump’s celebrity to gain unpaid media exposure.

While Trump has criticized the use of PACs the large amount raised by Bush has forced him to start four PACs himself. Though is no word on the amount raised thus far but it is likely in the tens of millions of dollars.

School Suspension Over Two Word Tweet Leads To Lengthy Legal Battle

A federal judge in Minnesota has permitted a first amendment and libel lawsuit filed by a high school student whose studies were postponed over a tweet of just two words to go on.

The offending words? “actually yes.”

Reid Sagehorn, then a high school student at Rogers High School, filed the lawsuit in June 2014 suing the principal of his former school, Elk River School District and two officials of the district for abusing his constitutional rights.

Sagehorn was the captain of the school’s basketball and football teams, and his disciplinary record was spotless.

Sagehorn, who was not willing to comment on the particulars of the story, is currently studying at the North Dakota State University.

The tweet, which was posted on January 2014, from Sagehorn’s currently locked account, was a reply to a tweet @Rogerconfession. The account on which the tweet appeared was created for rumors and “confessions” associated with the school.

The account posed the question: “did @R_Sagehorn3 actually make out with [name of female teacher redacted in court filings]? prolly not.”

Sagehorn’s response was: “actually yes.”

A week later, Sagehorn was called to the school head’s office, where he was reprimanded by the principle. The student insisted that the tweet was just a joke and not meant to be taken seriously.

Two days later he was given a five-day suspension, which was later prolonged to April 2014. His parents finally agreed to transfer him to a different school.

In the following weeks, Jeff Beahen, the Rogers Police Chief compared the remark to screaming “fire!” in a jam-packed theater.

Speaking to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Beahen said,” If you say something on a very public forum, there are consequences. This young, innocent teacher is the victim here.”

The local prosecutor later verified that Sagehorn had not committed any crime and the chief of police gave an apology. Sagehorn also said he had sent a written apology to the teacher in question: “I never meant to hurt anybody.”

In the civil complaint dated June 2014, Sagehorn seeks legal representatives’ fees, “punitive damages,” and an “expungement” of all penal measures on his school record. The lawsuit has been going on for over a year, with both parties asking for the court to rule on their argument for judgment on the pleadings.

John Tunheim, the U.S. District Judge did not believe the district’s allegation in his Tuesday view, “In sum, the Court concludes that Sagehorn has adequately pleaded a First Amendment claim. The School Defendants have not demonstrated that Sagehorn’s speech caused a substantial disruption, was obscene, was lewd or vulgar, or was harassing. Therefore, the School Defendants have not defeated Sagehorn’s claim by showing that they were permitted to regulate his speech.”

Neither Robert Bennett, one of Sagehorn’s lawyers, nor Amy Mace, one of the district’s advocates, were available for comment.

South Dakota Found A Simple Way To Curb Drunk Driving And States Are Taking Notice

To meet the annual surge in drunk driving fatalities that coincides with the arrival of Labor Day weekend, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is again rolling out its “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign.

Many criminal justice policies which target repeat drunk drivers seek to punish the behavior of driving rather than drinking, through the use of ignition locks or license suspension yet often fail to reduce a person’s alcohol consumption habits, the root cause of the problem.

South Dakota’s “24/7 Sobriety” program may have found another way.

With the first statewide implementation of the 24/7 program, South Dakota was able to reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths by 33% between 2006 and 2007. Since that time, there has been a further reduction of 25% in the same group.

The 24/7 program targets convicted drunk drivers by requiring twice-a-day breathalyzer tests or the use of a continuous alcohol monitoring bracelet, with an immediate escort to jail if a participant fails or misses a test.

One of the most promising findings is that repeat offenders were also able to find success through the program. In the first peer reviewed study on the program’s effectiveness, performed by the RAND corporation, a 12% reduction in repeat DUI arrests and a 9% reduction in domestic violence arrests were both recorded.

Yet the maximum punishment for failure to comply is just two nights in jail, far lower than many states which will jail repeat drunk drivers for months and years.

These lengthy jailing both fail to address the root behavior, alcoholism, and also result in expensive legal proceedings for the state and defendants.

The simplicity and certainty of the 24/7 program produces clear cut behavior-altering effects and doesn’t tie up precious state resources.

Similar programs are being implemented in neighboring states as well as in the United Kingdom.

According to SCRAM Systems, the company that manufactures the bracelet monitors for 24/7, the results have been duplicated in North Dakota’s own 24/7 program, with 98% of participants successfully completing it.

NASCAR Legend Gene Haas Is Bringing An F1 Team To America And Fans Are Going Nuts

NASCAR team owner and manufacturing tycoon Gene Haas is officially set to bring a Formula 1 (F1) motor racing team to the United States after the sports governing body, the FIA, approved the team’s 2016 application on Friday.

The announcement marks the first time an American team will participate in F1, considered the the pinnacle of motorsports, since 1986. The team will be headquartered in Kannapolis, North Carolina with a base in Banbury, England.

The company has been investing heavily for more than two years to create a state of the art facility in North Carolina that features its own state of the art wind tunnel and sophisticated computer modeling systems needed to create the advanced open wheel race cars.

haas f1 team factory

Haas is no stranger to motorsports after having won two championships in the intensely competitive NASCAR series and appears dead set on duplicating this success in the most global sports arena on the planet.

“We have a NASCAR team that is racing over ten years now, and we’ve been successful. We won two championships. We understand racing and we are approaching racing from a different point a view from our predecessors,” he said at a recent company event in Portugal.

“As important as it is to build your own cars and have technology, we also think it is important to win races.”

“We are looking at it from the racing standpoint. We are at the track to compete, and to achieve that we looked for the most efficient way to do it. I won’t say that we are going to compete with Mercedes and Ferrari, but we will be prepared,” he added.

Haas has smartly partnered with motorsport legend Ferrari to supply engines and technical expertise to his newly founded team. While the team will now officially be on the grid for 2016 it has yet to announce a driver lineup.

Haas has said initially he will likely stick with F1 veterans and will not seek an American driver for the inaugural season. Industry insiders expect that to change quickly in the coming years in order to tap into the huge fanbase of a country with over 300 million people and zero representation in Formula 1.

Half Of Young Adults In The UK Say They’re Not 100% Heterosexual

A new YouGov survey found that 49 percent of 18-24 year-olds in Britain see themselves as something other than completely heterosexual. The poll used the Kinsey scale which was invented in the 1940s to measure sexual preferences and places people exclusively heterosexual at zero with those exclusively homosexual at six.

Individuals in the study were asked to put themselves on the Kinsey scale.

72 percent of the British public scored themselves a zero, indicating they are completely heterosexual while four percent were at the completely homosexual end. 19 percent stated they were somewhere in between, making them bisexual according to Kinsey.

But the most striking finding of the study is that with each generation, people rated their sexuality as less static and more fluid.

sexuality study yougov

An example of this is the cohort of 18-24 year-olds. 43 per cent placed themselves between 1 and 5, more than double the overall average. Only 52 percent placed themselves at one extreme or the other. Yet despite placing themselves in the zones of exclusivity only 46 percent said in follow-up questions they are completely heterosexual and only 6 percent as completely homosexual.

Public opinion seems to have shifted to embrace the concept that sexual orientation is a continuum as opposed to being a binary choice between being straight and gay. The study confirmed this fact, with 60 percent of heterosexuals supporting this concept, as did 73 percent of homosexuals.

Kinsey, in his original research, estimated that approximately 10 percent of the population was gay, although this figure was criticized by the American Statistical Association. A 2011 Gallup poll on the issue surveyed over 1,000 people in the U.S. asking “what percentage of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?”

Respondents estimated that 25 percent Americans were gay.

bisexuality by gender

While the study did not find statistically significant differences between the proportion of bisexual men and bisexual females, research by Biscuit, a website catering to bisexual women, found that 38 percent of women have at one point engaged in some form of sexual activity with another female and most often as part of a group.

Charlotte Dingle, chief editor of Biscuit, said that “women are increasingly viewing their own sexuality as fluid. I believe that the old definitions of ‘gay’, ‘straight’ and ‘bi’ are increasingly irrelevant in a society in which an individual’s sexual and gender identity is becoming more and more complex and diverse.”

This fits with the study data and paints an interesting picture of modern sexuality and attitudes toward sexual orientation.

‘Extreme Willingness’ Of AT&T Is The Primary Reason Why The NSA Can Spy On America

Telecommunications giant AT&T has provided extensive assistance to the U.S. National Security Agency, allowing the agency to conduct unlawful surveillance on huge volumes of Internet traffic passing through the United States. The revelations come after analysis of newly disclosed NSA documents.

The documents were from 2003 to 2013 and are the latest revelation unearthed by whistleblowing NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Though it has been known that American telecommunications companies work closely with the spy agency, the new documents show that the government’s questionable relationship with AT&T has special status within the agency and is considered a prime intelligence asset.

Its also lucrative for AT&T, who receives tens of millions of dollars every year for enabling the rampant surveillance.

One document described the relationship as “highly collaborative,” while another praised the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”

The leaked documents show how the NSA’s relationship with AT&T has enabled the agency to conduct surveillance, under various legal loopholes, of international and foreign-to-foreign Internet communications that passed through its U.S. network. The program also allows the mass collection of data on ordinary, law abiding, citizens.

The NSA then assembles the collected data from AT&T into extensive dossiers on virtually every U.S. citizen and most citizens of the developed world.

AT&T installed NSA surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its U.S. datacenters, notably more than the agency placed in competitor Verizon Communications Inc’s Internet hubs. AT&T engineers are also the first to test new spying technologies invented by the NSA.

“This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship,” according to one NSA document, despite the fact the company profits handsomely from spying on its customers.

AT&T’s “corporate relationships provide unique accesses to other telecoms and I.S.P.s [internet service providers],” read another document.

In 2011 the company started the now infamous program in which it provided the NSA with more than 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records each day after “a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11.”

The scope of AT&T’s reach is stunning. Vast amounts of the entire planet’s Internet communications pass across the company’s U.S. cables. The company went out of its way to allow the NSA to access this data gold mine years before Verizon started to do so in March 2013.

The documents also show that the company gave significant technical assistance to the NSA in carrying out wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations, who happened to be an AT&T customer.

AT&T spokesman Brad Burns downplayed the role the company played, stating “We do not voluntarily provide information to any investigating authorities other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence. For example, in a kidnapping situation we could provide help tracking down called numbers to assist law enforcement.”

AT&T refused to comment any further on the report or directly address the massive fees the company was paid for its collaboration.

The program, and lucrative business relationship, continue to this day and have expanded in scope since 2013. It is now widely assumed that every single bit of internet traffic is logged and analyzed by the NSA, who operates one of the largest computing facilities on the planet.

Rate Rigging Penalties For Big Banks Will Be So Big They Threaten The Stability Of The Financial System

The most internationally recognized banking institutions in the world face a wave of lawsuits in the UK this autumn to compensate for billions of dollars of losses incurred as a result of their traders rigging foreign exchange rates.

Five international banking organizations including HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays agreed to pay off some affected investors this week in New York, foreshadowing costly settlements elsewhere in the world.

They joined four other multinational banking organizations that settled in the U.S. earlier this year. The total payment pledged to the aggrieved investors, most of which are pension and hedge funds, has now hit the $2 billion mark, according to Hausfeld, a law firm which presented the case on behalf of investors.

According to the law firm, the huge U.S. compensations are “just the beginning”. Michael Hausfeld, the firm’s head, said that Hausfeld had received queries about raising legal action in Britain, and that a formal statement could be reached as soon as October.

Others have proposed that the American legal system, which accommodates class action cases, is better when it comes to handling suits of this nature. Expressing his confidence about success in London, Mr. Hausfeld said, “This is a very strong case on its merits. I think we have clear ‘intent’ in UK law.”

Hausfeld argued that since the London forex market was bigger than that of the U.S. , the compensation was likely to be bigger as well. He added, “Anyone who traded in the market at any time in this period [2007 to 2013] was at risk.”

Rigging of forex trading was the latest in a row of rate-rigging disgraces to affect the financial sector.  

Traders at large banking organization, shamelessly using terms such as “The Bandits Club”, “The Cartel” and “The Mafia”, plotted over online chat platforms and email to harmonize foreign exchange trades in the $5.4 trillion-a-day market, allowing them to generate revenue at the cost of their customers – often investors and corporations.

Four multinational banking organizations – Citigroup, RBS, Barclays and JP Morgan – accepted the charges in May in the U.S. for plotting to influence forex rates between 2007 and 2013. These, together with Bank of America and UBS, were fined $6 billion from UK and U.S. regulators.

The possibility of further huge forex-related lawsuit costs for large UK banks will be a huge concern for regulators. The Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England identified misdemeanor costs as one of the major threats affecting the stability of the financial system.

The banking organizations participating in the settlement in New York this week were not willing to comment on the particulars, but The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Barclays will pay $375 million and HSBC $285 million to resolve U.S. litigation.  

The other banking organizations involved in the litigation include Citibank, RBS, UBS, BNP, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Paribas and Bank of America.  Seven others are being pursued by Hausfeld.

Trump Says He’ll Deport All Undocumented Immigrants If Elected

Straight talking Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump said he would deport all undocumented immigrants and rescind President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration if elected.

He made the remarks in an interview with NBC News that will be broadcast on Sunday.

“We’re going to keep the families together, but they have to go,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” according to an excerpt released by the media giant late Saturday.

Host Chuck Todd asked about illegal immigrants who have nowhere else to go, to which Trump said: “We will work with them.”

“They have to go … we either have a country, or we don’t have a country,” he went on to say.

Trump, 69, also said he would need to rescind President Obama’s executive orders on immigration, notably one that protects children of parents who came to the country illegally from deportation.

Currently sitting at the top of opinion polls among the 17 Republican contenders, the real estate mogul and television personality has stirred controversy with his provocative stances on illegal immigration. He has described undocumented migrants from Mexico as rapists and criminals.

The United States has an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living within its borders.

Ecuador Declares State Of Emergency In Face Of Looming Volcano Eruption

The government of Ecuador declared a nationwide state of emergency on Saturday as it prepared for a major eruption of a volcano located south of the country’s capital, Quito.

The order, which suspends some constitutional rights and bans media from publishing unauthorized information, will free up already budgeted funds for possible disaster recovery efforts and stop rumors from causing panic, President Rafael Correa said in his weekly radio and television broadcast to the nation.

The order will be in effect for up to 60 days.

Cotopaxi, which rises approximately 19,350 feet above sea level, began erupting on Aug. 14th. A series of small eruptions have sent ash clouds three miles into the air and forced towns south of Quito to be evacuated.

Cotopaxi is located 31 miles south of Quito and was last active between 1877 and 1880, according to the South American nation’s Geophysical Institute (IGEPN). Approximately 2.2 million people live in the greater Quito metropolitan area and could be exposed to potential fallout from a large-scale eruption.

IGEPN said in a report Friday that the volcano will likely continue to erupt, with larger explosions following the smallers ones already seen as magma creeps toward the volcano’s surface,

In addition to falling ash, authorities are preparing for mudslides and flooding in the towns surrounding the volcano, which includes Quito’s suburbs. The flooding would be caused by the glaciers covering the peak of the mountain being melted during an eruption.

Quito’s recent urban expansion has been on flood plains, increasing risks.

Updated: Plane Carrying 54 People Lost Over Indonesia

Update: An Indonesian transport official confirmed the aircraft had been found in the Bintang highlands region, near its intended landing site at Oksibil airport.

It remains unclear if anyone survived. The wreckage was discovered by villagers, who then alerted officials.

“Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain,” said the Indonesia’s director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo.

Original:

An Indonesian registered aircraft belonging to Trigana Air Service aircraft went missing on Sunday over the country’s remote Papua province, according to official statements published to Twitter.

The plane had 54 people on board including 44 adults, five children and five crew.

BASARNAS, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency told the media that search efforts for the missing flight had seen “zero outcome” and that it was temporarily suspending rescue efforts for the night due to darkness.

Indonesian Transportation Ministry Spokesman Julius Barata said that the ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was travelling from Papua’s provincial capital, Jayapura, to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact with Oksibil airport’s air traffic control.

It left Jayapura at 2:22 pm local time and lost contact with air traffic controllers about 2:55 pm.

Rugged terrain both increases the chances of an accident and makes search and rescue efforts complicated. Some of the mountain peaks in the region are as high as 10,000 feet.

 

Osama Bin Laden’s Son Calls For Terror Attacks In New Video

The latest communication released by the Al-Qaeda terror network claims to show Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza, asking his group to carry out terrorist attacks in London and on other nations allied with the United States.

Supposedly in his Mid 20s and reportedly referred to as the ‘crown prince of terror,’ bin Laden’s son has been identified as the potential future leader of Al Qaeda.

Communicating via Twitter, Hamza called upon lone wolf jihadists to plan and execute terror attacks on the United States and other nations, pinpointing Washington, Tel Aviv, London and Paris as particular targets.

The twitter message made no reference to rival terror group ISIS.

Rita Katz, the director of Site, a terrorist intelligence group, wrote on Twitter: 

Hamza Bin Laden, son of Usamah bin Laden [sic], gives strategies in continuing global jihad in audio message. Hamza Bin Laden lived the life of jihad with his father throughout AQ’s [al-Qaeda] creation in Afghanistan. With Hamza, AQ hopes to renew the popularity of AQ by reviving the brand of ‘AQ = Bin Laden’. AQ leadership wants Hamza as a future leader: someone loved and inspirational, without a negative reputation or participation in infighting. Hamza Bin Laden calls to move the war from Kabul, Gaza and Baghdad, to Washington, London, Paris and Tel-Aviv. Urges: ‘This is your duty’. Hamza Bin Laden urged lone wolf attacks in the US and the West; targeting of Jewish American interests globally.

It is thought the message was recorded before June but has only just now been publicized.

Since U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, the Al Qaeda Terrorist group has been under the command and leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was Bin Laden’s right hand man.

It is understood that Hamza Bin Laden participated in attacks inside Afghanistan and Pakistan as early as 10 years ago.

Software Glitch Causes Airport Traffic Jams On U.S. East Coast

A technical computer-related difficulty at a Virginia air traffic control center caused major flight holdups on Saturday at many airports in the New York City and Washington areas, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.

According to the FAA, Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where departing flights delayed for up to two hours, was among the airports experiencing major delays.

An undetermined difficulty emerged in a computer program that manages flight preparations at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center in Leesburg, Virginia, compelling the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily stop the departures for all flights at the D.C.-area’s three most important airports, the FAA reported.

Spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Kimberly Gibbs, said that flights from at least two Washington-area airports were taking off again in the early afternoon.

But the work stoppage had a domino effect, pushing back a number of flights around the country.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said that the difficulty also had an effect on planes that were in the sky at the time of the computer difficulty, with “high-altitude traffic” undergoing diversion around the center’s airspace.

A map on FlightRadar24.com, the flight-tracking website, seemed to demonstrate the effect: a small number of planes were shown over wide regions of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware in the early hours of Saturday afternoon.

By 1:30 p.m., more flights were in the airspace, with planes departing Washington-area airports at last. But flights taking off from the airspace of Washington had to maintain an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The main airlines recognized the delays along the East Coast.

Delta Air Lines spokesperson Morgan Durrant said “We have to make last-minute adjustments to flight plans.”  Explaining further, Durrant said, “Flights in and out of the three major D.C.-area airports may be delayed.”

On twitter, American Airlines said, “There is an issue with air traffic control impacting all airlines’ east coast flights. Please plan accordingly.”

Researchers Find Athletes Taking PEDs Aren’t Lazy Cheaters

It’s a story that plays out time and again: the meteoric rise of a superstar athlete, with adoring fans that marvel at his strength, agility and quickness. Yet suddenly there’s accusations of drug abuse. Investigations, probations, suspensions, and even permanent bans from the sport then follow. For fans it’s difficult to understand why a professional athlete would risk using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) when there is so far to fall.

Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies examined the topic in depth to find out the prevalence of PED use and what drives athletes to take banned substances in the face of all these risks.

What they found was stunning: Every single major league sport in the United States has widespread PED use.

And because what’s classified as a PED is defined in the tenuous collective bargaining agreements governing the leagues, there’s a large amount of drug use that isn’t tested for and happens in the shadows.

Gwen Knapp, an industry insider at Sports on Earth has found that “even now, drug testing is a sieve. It is in every sport. The tests are probably useful in skimming off the worst abuse, requiring juiced athletes to moderate their doses — a pretty valuable effect, if you think about this clearly. The tests may even scare off some potential users, but they won’t clean up a sport.”

While all sports see a significant level of PED use, the researchers found that instead of players being lazy cheaters they’re taking drugs for very specific reasons.

In the NFL, sixty percent of those who test positive for PEDs are linemen, indicating the competitive advantage of PEDs at this position is highest. In Major League Baseball there were no positional differences in drug use reflecting that every position stands to benefit from PEDs.

The types of drugs players take also varies by position. While NFL linemen are caught almost exclusively for steroids, which build muscle mass, defensive backs are almost always caught taking Adderall, which helps them concentrate and improves their reflexes.

In short, the researchers found that drug use amongst professional athletes appears very scientific. Players are taking drugs only when it benefits them most, such as those in positions with the most competition, and when they do take drugs they take very specific types that give very specific performance advantages.

This scientific drug use wasn’t what the researchers expected to find. Instead of being slackers it appears highly motivated professional athletes are simply rational gamblers. With multi-million dollar contracts on the line and intense competition athletes cheat when it makes the most sense.

Instead of just continually looking for an advantage, pro athletes in the United States are taking specific drugs at specific times for specific reasons.

The implication of that finding is that PEDs will never stop being a part of professional sports. With huge contracts as an incentive and new drugs emerging all the time, athletes will keep taking the calculated risk of using PEDs for the foreseeable future.

Illustrating how prevalent PEDs are in sports, check out these visualization of games missed for PED use in the NFL and MLB. The full study can be found at here.

nfl-substance-suspensions-map
mlb-substance-suspensions-map
Images courtesy of Northwestern University School of Professional Studies

Patent Filing Reveals Space Elevator Is Edging Closer To Reality

The world’s dreams of an elevator capable of reaching up into space just got a little bit closer this week after noted Canadian space and defense firm Thoth acquired a U.S. patent for what may become the world’s first space elevator.

While not a capsule that extends all the way into space itself, as has been proposed in the past, the system would instead lift its cargo high into the atmosphere. The top would hold a platform to enable a short flight into space.

By launching spacecraft from atop the elevator, at an altitude of 12 miles, many of the difficulties – and costs – associated with space travel can be avoided.

Specifications for the patent describe the ability to lift loads up to 10 tons that will not have to be subject to the vibration, g-forces, and waste associated with traditional rocket launches.

Thoth Technology has stated that the use of their space elevator has the possibility to save 30% on fuel costs alone, due to lower air resistance at that altitude and the obvious fact of the 12 mile head start.

According to the patent, “The present invention is a self-supporting space elevator tower for the delivery of payloads to at least one platform or pod above the surface of the Earth for the purposes of space launch.” The vehicles used to depart from the tower would also be able to return to earth.

The technology within the patent is for the most part already available and employs a structure made with tubes of a Kevlar composite held rigid by helium gas.

Earlier designs would have required the use of an “anchor” set in geostationary orbit from which a tether would be lowered and connected to a corresponding tether attached to the Earth. With geostationary orbit located at an altitude of over 22,000 miles, this design is not currently feasible.

Thoth’s new design offers some of the benefits of the original design without the complications.

The basic technology for space flight hasn’t evolved much in the last half century, with large rockets still a requirement to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth.

If Thoth can implement their new elevator patent, the cost savings could accelerate the pace of space missions in addition to its use in other applications such as wind energy and communications.

Comcast Thinks The World Wants Another YouTube

Comcast’s much speculated about YouTube competitor could be launching in the near future according to blog reports circulating late Friday.

According to various supposedly reliable internal sources the service, possibly referred to as ‘Watchable’, could be arriving in the next few weeks.

The service would include a wide mix of video clips and songs from various media organizations like BuzzFeed and Vox, both of which Comcast has recently invested in.  

Comcast has forced each business partner to sign multi year contracts to upload all their unlicensed, original content to Watchable’s system.

The video clips and recordings will be bundled, curated and streamed over Comcast’s Xfinity X1 cable boxes. The organization presently has just a few million X1 units installed but intends to increase the current number into the tens of millions by 2017. Watchable may also extend its services to iOS and Android gadgets in the future.

The service theoretically offers Comcast a means to directly compete with Facebook video and YouTube, while catering to its present TV customers.

While Comcast is among the largest distributors of video advertisements in the U.S, thanks to its prolific cable TV offerings, Facebook and YouTube have been gnawing at Comcast’s share of the market for years.

Yet it remains to be seen if users will be truly attracted to yet another video platform. YouTube has seen a host of competitors – DailyMotion, Vimeo, Justin.tv – all come and go. Its biggest rivals seem not to be stand-alone video sites, but rather video embedded deeply within social networks, where it is easily shared and readily consumed.

It also faces competition from Netflix, whos smaller but much higher quality content library and lack of annoying ads attracts users in droves. YouTube doesn’t seem vulnerable to companies copying it but rather to those who do something different in the online video streaming market. 

For Comcast the initiative could turn out to be a spectacular flop if its just copying YouTube with some low quality original content offerings from Vox and Buzzfeed.

Until the full business model is revealed it appears too early to speculate on whether Comcast is really targeting YouTube or is doing something different.

The President’s Personal Playlists Are Now On Spotify

Ever wondered what songs President Barack Obama listens to? Speculate no more. President Obama on Saturday released two playlists to music streaming service Spotify. The President listens to one during the evening and another during the day.

The #POTUSPlaylist that you can listen to during the day includes 20 songs from Bob Marley and The Wailers, Bob Dylan, The Temptations, Coldplay, Justin Timberlake, Nappy Roots, Stevie Wonder, The Machine & Florence, and John Legend.

President Obama has an equally interesting playlist for the evenings that includes songs from Frank Sinatra, Mos Def, John Coltrane, Van Morrison, and Otis Redding.

White House personnel look set to be releasing some playlists too as Spotify said in a statement that, “You can expect to see the White House share playlists created by administration officials, as well as playlists curated around events and issues to engage the public and acquaint them with the people working in the administration.”

According to the White House Blog, the inaugural list of songs was hand-picked by the President of the United States himself. The President wrote the lists on good old fashioned pen and paper, which were then given to staffers to upload.

The lists will be regularly maintained which means that subscribers will, for the first time ever, be listening to the exact same music as the commander in chief.

Listen to them here: Day and Night

 

 

North Korea Vows To Destroy South Korean Propaganda Loudspeaker

After South Korea started to once again broadcast propaganda via loudspeaker into neighboring North Korea, the hermit kingdom has threatened to attack the speakers and destroy them.

The speakers began broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda following the injury of two South Korean soldiers by mines which were freshly planted by North Korea on the south side of the border.

The level of brinksmanship looks like it will continue to increase as both sides have vowed not to back down.

Calling the actions a “declaration of war,” and threatening the speakers with destruction, North Korea may have to cope with a possible counterattack by South Korea after president Park Geun-hye vowed a “firm response” to any provocation.

The South has in the recent past offered the opportunity for greater cooperation between the two nations, if the North is willing. Yet continued provocation from North Korean dictators has angered South Korean leaders and the stance is increasingly turning hostile.

The mines used in the attack earlier this month were a wooden box design typically used by the North, according to South Korean General Koo Hong-mo. Also typical was the North’s response to the allegations, stating that it was a conspiracy by the South.

Hundreds of thousands of mines were planted near the Demilitarized Zone by both sides following the signing of an armistice in 1953, but the explosion was the first of its kind in since 1967.

Other accidents involving villagers have occurred as well, including one death in 2010 following a flood which moved some of the mines downstream.

The low-profile mine attacks allow the North to maintain the illusion to their citizens that they are still fighting the war against the South and the “western imperialists,” which is technically true as the armistice has never been replaced with a proper peace treaty.

The loudspeaker broadcasts have not been implemented by the South for 11 years, in what was a part of reconciliation efforts at the time.

It’s Official: Apple Is Going To Make A Self Driving Car

While we’ve covered Apple’s flirtation with automobiles before, late Friday conclusive evidence emerged that the smartphone giant is building an autonomous vehicle. Documents leaked to British newspaper The Guardian show more proof the company has quietly been staffing a team of engineers, car designers and battery experts to work on a car-related special project, which looks almost certainly to be a full-on car.

This confirms earlier job postings by the Cupertino, California, based company for automotive engineers and its recent interest in BMW. Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the German automaker earlier this year regarding a possible partnership, though in reality the Apple entourage may have just been kicking the tires while trying to pick up manufacturing tips.

BMW was reported to have been very careful about what they said and what facilities they allowed Apple to see, fearing the company would simply steal its manufacturing techniques.

While most of Friday’s story has been known for some time, it did contain the new revelation that Apple has signed a deal with GoMentum Station, a former naval base 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, which is outfitted with a network of roads and highways over its vast 2,100 acre parcel of land.

The facility can be used for only one thing: testing a self-driving car.

The complex is typically Apple: Super secret. Using the facility means the company avoids having to disclose information to any municipal government, which is what rival Google has had to do with the city of Mountain View, where it is testing its own fleet of autonomous vehicles.

The secret initiative is codenamed Project Titan within Apple, and is likely to hit the market in five years or so. While Google has reportedly commissioned over 100 prototypes, as we covered here, Apple has also been creating prototypes of its own that are further along than anyone anticipated.

The prototypes are so advanced that the company may be able to begin testing them as early as next year. It’s not yet known whether the vehicles will be entirely self driving or whether it will, as most analysts assume, be a hybrid containing a steering wheel as well as a self driving mode.

The most fascinating part of the new report is that, as we reported here, Apple’s number one iPhone manufacturer, Foxconn, has been working on electric vehicle manufacturing for some time now. The company is, in fact, now a major car rental and car manufacturing company within China and is expanding rapidly.

This means that Apple, now in the advanced stages of creating a self driving vehicle would have a long-trusted manufacturing partner ready, willing and able to produce a vehicle at a moment’s notice.

Such news is likely to strike fear in the hearts of established automakers in Detroit and Germany, as two of the biggest brands in the world – Apple and Google – now have their sights firmly set on the automotive industry.

Government Admits It Just Guesses When Putting People On The No Fly List

In a stunning revelation, the U.S. Department of Justice has admitted that the government’s no-fly list is based mainly on “predictive assessments” of potential threats rather than a history of criminality. Whether someone should be on the list is, essentially, just a guess.

The acknowledgement of the criteria for placement on the no-fly list revealed that individuals must only pose a “reasonable suspicion” of threat, well below the accepted legal standard of probable cause.

With no effective recourse for being placed on the lists, and the number added to these lists in the hundreds of thousands per year, the system effectively subjects law abiding Americans to random chance of having their travel privileges revoked.

Following an ACLU case ruling in Oregon in 2014, the government announced in April of this year that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be notified of their placement on the list and possibly given reasons for the designation.

The ACLU maintains that the means of challenging these designations still does not satisfy rights of due process by refusing access to live hearings and witness cross examination, placing those on the list in a state of limbo.

The Obama administration is fighting to block any further revelations on how the assessments are made based on the defense of “national security.”

Assistant director to the FBI’s counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach, explained the government’s justification saying, “If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries.” Through knowledge of the DHS guidelines for placing individuals on the list, the process could be manipulated.

The ACLU counters such arguments by claiming the high error rate of DHS predictive assessments negates the benefits provided from the program.

Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Marc Sagemen backed the ACLU’s argument on Friday stating, “There is no indication that the government has assessed the scientific validity and reliability of its predictive judgments or the information that leads to those judgments, nor has it used a scientifically valid model for predicting, and accounting for, the rate of error that might arise from those predictive judgments. Due to these failures alone, the government’s predictive judgments cannot be considered reliable.”

Despite the government’s partial concession in notifying those placed on the dreaded list, the fact remains that challenging that assessment lacks the constitutional protections afforded to those subject to an actual criminal charge.

Tianjin Disaster: 104 Confirmed Dead As Toxic Cyanide Gas Drifts Toward Nearby Homes

The extent of the devastation caused by the massive explosions in Tianjin, China, this week may be greater than initially thought as authorities moved to evacuate the surrounding areas due to the threat from deadly sodium cyanide.

The death toll climbed to 104 people as of Saturday morning and president Xi Jinping called for greater reform in the area of industrial safety. The incident is a blow to China’s image on the global stage and a reminder that the nation is still developing.

The company responsible for the warehouse, Ruihai International Logistics Co., is suspected of violating hazardous chemical storage laws and executives are currently being questioned by the government. Tianjin is one of the country’s largest ports, importing some 40% of China’s automobiles. Due to the nature of the disaster, businesses in the immediate area carrying oil and hazardous materials have halted their operations while others remain unaffected.

Fires re-ignited Saturday leading to multiple explosions. A warehouse containing chemicals. including the sodium cyanide, was destroyed on Wednesday and police moved at 11am Saturday to enforce the evacuation after wind changes threatened to spread the toxic chemical inland. An exclusion radius of 1.9 miles will be enforced for people and vehicles.

During a press conference on the matter, the question was raised concerning the proximity of residential neighborhoods to such a hazardous industrial area, which led to CCTV coverage of the interview being cut short by state censors who have from the start been keen to downplay the incident.

Ruihai executives may have violated regulations that forbid placement of hazardous chemical storage within 0.6 miles of major transportation routes as well as residential areas. Satellite imagery of the warehouse shows railways, roads, and residential buildings within that limit.

The disaster illuminates the often shady practices of Chinese business when it comes to human safety. Past accidents have been blamed on poor enforcement of regulations, such as the 2013 oil pipeline explosion in Qingdao, which killed 62 and injuring 136.

Earlier this year a chemical plant fire led to the relocation of 29,000 in Zhanghzou. Although the government ordered inspections of chemical facilities nationwide, it remains to be seen whether the complacent attitude towards safety will be affected.

One Shanghai-based warehouse developer stated, “The operators of these warehouses typically get a tipoff before inspectors come, and they can hide the hazardous material. Companies need to take a stronger sense of responsibility regarding safety too.”

Amid Fierce Opposition London Approves Europe’s Largest Bicycle Super Highway

London Mayor Boris Johnson announced two huge new bicycle paths that will interweave the city and allow swift, harmless cycling that will alleviate pollution and ease traffic for everyone, including non-cyclists.

The mayor’s achievement in pushing ahead with his intention to construct cycle highways right through the center is nothing short of a small miracle given the city’s size and dense population. 

Speaking at the inauguration of the construction in March, Boris Johnson said that the highways will be completed after May of 2016, but the idea stretches beyond just making the ride smooth for cyclists. He said, “Getting more people on their bikes will reduce pressure on the road, bus and rail networks, cut pollution and improve life for everyone, whether or not they cycle themselves.”

The 21 mile “Cross-rail for the Bike” will be completely separated from vehicle traffic: 3 miles traveling north to south (from King’s Cross to Elephant and Castle) and 18 miles running east to west (from Barking to Acton). After completion next year, the highway will be the longest bike path in Europe.

However, Transport for London’s Superhighways has its detractors too. A threat by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) to proceed to court was withdrawn after it became evident that a legal appraisal of the path would only delay rather than put a stop to the establishment of the new routes.

Through an anonymous briefing (which it later acknowledged), Property company Canary Wharf Group had described the proposed route as being “extremely damaging for London.” Their objections hinged on worries over traffic jams, restricting delivery vehicle entry, overcrowding, and negatively affecting commerce in general.

According to Andrew Gilligan, London’s cycling commissioner, some of London’s municipal sections have been vicious challengers, only caving under enormous pressure and, in one instance, threats to snatch control of its infrastructure.

While Johnson has been a significant booster of cycling in the city, investing £900 million ($1.4 billion) in the development, the original initiative has been long overdue. Ken Livingstone, his predecessor, who became London Mayor in 2000, was exceptionally active in pursuing the cycling program and in 2008 proclaimed £400 million ($624 million) in project plans. Even before Livingstone, there was a long and sustained movement to enhance the profile and the prospect for cycling in London.

British Citizens Sign Petition To Have Israeli PM Arrested For War Crimes Upon His State Visit

45,000 people have signed a petition for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes when he visits the UK next month.

In September, Netanyahu will go to London on an official visit, where he will meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Jewish News reported that the stalemate in the Palestine-Israel peace process and the Iranian nuclear deal will be the principal matters on the agenda during the state visit.

Published on the website of the UK parliament, the petition demands the arrest of Netanyahu upon arrival for “the massacre of over 2,000 civilians in 2014.”

Last summer, Israel staged a blood-spattered attack against Gaza that saw the death of nearly 2,300 Palestinian civilians, 500 of them children.

The attack brought Gaza’s infrastructure to its knees, and left well over 500,000 people displaced or homeless.

The UK administration will be forced to take action since the appeal has been signed by over 10,000 people. If it goes over 100,000, the legislature could discuss the issue.

Conversely, under diplomatic immunity principles, the Israeli PM is protected from being taken into custody in London for the supposed war-crimes committed in alien countries.

Israel has rubbished the appeal, referring to it as a “meaningless” publicity stunt that bears “no practical significance.”

In a formal statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said: “[The petition is] a PR exercise with no real meaning. Bilateral ties between Britain and Israel are closer than ever before.”

The ministry further said this is “evidenced by data on mutual trade, doubled in recent years, and by cooperation in academic studies, culture and science between the two countries.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that some retired Israeli officers have been facing threat of arrest in the UK as pro-Palestinian campaigners in Britain “take advantage of legal loopholes.” More broadly there is increasing worldwide awareness of Israeli war crimes and victimization of innocent civilians, which has led to widespread condemnation from those who have little at stake in the conflict.

Israel was the target earlier this year of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement that saw businesses around the world refuse to engage with Israeli companies over the atrocities committed by its military forces.

The United Nations confirmed earlier this year that the country did in fact engage in war crimes when it murdered hundreds of Palestinian children and callously bombed residential neighborhoods, contrary to the international rules of war.

The World’s Food Supply Is About To Be Decimated By Extreme Weather Caused By Climate Change

According to the findings of a report by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, mass global food deficiencies, the likes of which are a once per 100 years occurrence, may be experienced as often as every 3 decades starting in 2040.

The production of soybeans, maize, wheat and rice, as well as other globally significant commodities, is principally limited to India, China and the United States. In these “breadbasket” areas, severe weather conditions are becoming more common due to rising global temperatures.

Phenomena such as intense storms and droughts, which decimate crop production, may leave the entire worldwide food supply susceptible to terrible shocks.

Presenting the report, professor of population ecology at Leeds University, Tim Benson, stated, “The chance of having a weather-related food shock is increasing, and the size of that shock is also increasing.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) anticipates that the demand for food will likely increase by a stunning 60% over present levels by the year 2050. This increase in demand for food, at an international level, is more than proportionate when compared to the estimated supply of agricultural produce, according to the report by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.

It’s the risk to that supply caused by extreme weather that’s the issue.

The report lays emphasis on the designing of comprehensive international emergency plans to minimize the shock of food supply shortages and safeguard against any one region being too fundamental to worldwide food production.

It recommends the formation of better contingency models to forecast falls in food production, and more reliable storage practices so nations are ready for any falls that may occur.

According to the report, the countries worst hit by these shocks will be those that are heavily reliant on imported products, particularly those in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, where political turbulence could increase and the prices of oil may rise quickly.

Volkswagen Becomes Latest Vehicle Manufacturer To Be Hit By Car Hack Attacks

A big security flaw in VW automobiles has leaked through the company’s massive efforts to keep it under wraps, affecting brands Fiat, Audi, Ferrari, and others. The company joins Chrysler, GM, Mercedes and BMW in a long list of cars susceptible to hacker attacks.

The nature of the flaw is known as “keyless” car theft, wherein a criminal is able to exploit weaknesses in the electronic locking mechanisms and engine immobilizers. Keyless car theft accounts for 42% of vehicle theft in London, and the security flaw has been known of since 2012. Rather than address the costly problem, the German carmaker chose to sue the researchers in order to prevent the publishing of their results.

Normally a car will not start unless it receives an RFID signal from the owner’s key, but this system is easily compromised using scanning devices that can then mimic the signal. Security analyst Andrew Tierney commented on the phenomenon, “The attack is quite advanced, but VW produces a lot of very high-end vehicles that get stolen to order. The criminals involved are more sophisticated than the sorts who just steal your keys and drive off with your car.”

The only fix available is a costly total replacement of the RFID keys and the corresponding transponders in cars. Such a fix applied to all VW models could cost the company a whopping $1 billion. Researchers Roel Verdult and Baris Ege first took their findings to the key manufacturer in 2012, followed by VW in 2013, at which point the lawsuit was filed by VW to prevent publication of the findings.

Following a period of negotiation, the findings were published save for a redaction containing the description of the flaw. One point to keep in mind is that Verdult and Ege’s research concerned the keyless system made by Megamos, but other automakers use systems that may be just as vulnerable.

Until the issue is resolved, security experts recommend investing in additional measures such as steering locks and OBD locks. An on-board diagnostics (ODB) lock physically blocks the access port that mechanics normally use to communicate with the car’s computer. Thieves are able to program their own keys to the car if they can gain access to the ODB port.

Like the efforts of VW in fighting the publication of the security flaw, the response by authorities to combat the problem looks just as troubling. Efforts in London are underway to pass legislation banning the sale of the devices used in the keyless thefts, but lawmakers are forgetting that criminals don’t follow the law.

Uber’s Legal Troubles Continue After Million Dollar Fine For Illegal Operations In Taiwan

Uber is expected to pay a fine amounting to U.S. $1 million for improper registration, which has ignited a public backlash in favor of Uber’s activities in the City.

The government of Taiwan has imposed a fine totaling 1 million U.S. dollars on the app-based cab services since September, as the administration considers revoking Uber’s certification to carry out its operations on the Island. The nation joins a long list of other countries enforcing stiff penalties on the scofflaw company.

The department in charge of highways has recorded 243 fines totalling 32.75 million Taiwanese dollars (U.S. $1m) since September, when the legal penalties on the app-based cab services first started for carrying out operations without sufficient registration.

It is the most recent impediment for Uber, which faces roadblocks in a number of other nations. Just this week five of their staff were taken into custody in Hong Kong and the city of Toronto announced 198 fines against its UberX drivers.

The San Francisco-based organization has been knotted in conflicts with the Taiwanese government since its 2013 launch in Taipei.

According to authorities, Uber has filed its documents with the government as a corporation but has not expressly identified itself as a transport business—a categorization that the company rejects, maintaining it is just a stage that creates a link between passengers and drivers.

Speaking to AFP on Friday, spokesperson for the directorate general of highways, Liang Guo-guo, said “They haven’t registered as a transportation business but they fit into our definition of one.” He added, “So when they carry passengers, it’s a violation.”

According to Liang, authorities “have been discussing eliminating their license.” Explaining further, he added, “But there are some legal and operation rights issues.”

Uber did not respond to email inquiries about the legal consequences and the threat of being eliminated from the Taipei market.

The Taiwanese authorities also discretely fined Uber taxi personnel by issuing 251 tickets totaling $340,000 for unlawfully ferrying passengers.

Hong Kong police ambushed Uber’s administrative center and arrested five drivers in a sting procedure earlier this week on the grounds that they were “illegally driving a car for rental purpose and driving without third-party insurance.”

The occurrence ignited much criticism from the general public, with at least 46,000 citizens signing on an appeal since Thursday to maintain Uber’s business in the southern Chinese city.

Uber is also facing legal disputes in California over the categorization of its drivers.

Last month it postponed its service known as UberPOP in France due to a wave of vicious protests triggered by infuriated taxi drivers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, despite the impediments, it was able to recent raise approximately $1 billion, making the company worth at least $50 billion.

Government Acknowledges China Is Spying On Personal Emails Of Top Officials

U.S. government officials have for the first time confirmed Chinese spying on senior U.S. intelligence officials. Chinese government hackers intercepted email exchanges of Obama administration officials in attacks that date back to at least 2010. The intelligence officials clarified that it was not the government emails of administration personnel that were compromised, but the private emails. In addition, the address books of those officials were also acquired. The instance is one of many rumoured yet first to be officially confirmed as coming from the Chinese state. The revelations continue to illustrate the constant threat of cyber espionage to the American government.

America’s own NSA is known to engage in similar spying on foreign governments as well as U.S. citizens in what is a massive data dragnet. In a document published by the Washington Post, a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court was shown to have approved NSA surveillance of 193 countries, excluding four that were a part of a no-spy agreement: Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Some government officials acknowledge that they are probably being spied on, such as current U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who commented that “Unfortunately, we’re living in a world where a number of countries, China and Russia included, have consistently been engaged in cyber-attacks against American interests, against the American government. It’s very possible, and I certainly write things with that awareness…”

With the unprecedented level of surveillance engaged in by the NSA following the revelations of Edward Snowden and Wikileaks, it would seem naïve if nations like China and Russia, with whom we often differ, would not also be engaging in their own efforts.

One question that is not easy to answer: to what degree are the efforts of the NSA at odds to the principles of American society, and are they more or less damaging than the current cyber threats from foreign governments? We may not have arrived at an answer to this yet, but we should not give up the pursuit for one as it could be our own tactics are merely encouraging foreign actors.

Trump Sees Clinton Unraveling After Email Scandal, Says He’ll Face Biden In 2016

Brash Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has predicted he will be facing Vice President Joe Biden instead of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election.

He said he believes Clinton’s campaign will come to a halt because of the controversy surrounding her use of private email for Federal Government business while she was Secretary of State, with Joe Biden stepping in as the Democrat’s favored candidate.

“It just looks like Hillary is going to not be able to run,” he said. “It looks to me like that’s what’s going to happen.

Referring to the email controversy he added “I hear this thing is big league. You know what she was doing. She was guarding from the President seeing what she was doing.”

“I’m just looking at it saying, ‘what the Hell was she thinking? Why did she do it?”

Clinton announced earlier this week she is turning over her personal computer and its USB flash drive backup to investigators from the Justice Department.

Trump said it is unlikely voters could take Clinton’s campaign seriously if she had jeopardized critical intelligence by using private email and having it on her server.

“What she’s done is 10-times worse than what General Petraeus did — far more sensitive documents, top-of-the-line sensitive documents, far more of them,” said Trump citing former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus’s 2012 email scandal.

“It destroyed him, so I don’t see how she’s going to possibly be able to run,” Trump said. “I think it’s unlikely if you look at what she’s done. It’s pretty conclusive right now, too.”

However, despite Trumps viewpoint, Hillary Clinton remains the clear front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination despite falling support over the email controversy.

Trump said American voters had come to expect political intrigue from both Hillary Clinton and husband President Bill Clinton.

“Because they’re always looking to go over the edge. Whether it’s Whitewater or anything else. They always want to go over the edge.” he said.

Researchers Find New SEC Pay Gap Rules Are Easy To Game

Academics and union activists have been carefully researching how companies can get around new rules imposed last week by the U.S Government which public companies to show how much more their top executives earn than workers.

Although Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White said the law was written in a way to make it easier for companies to abide by the rules, others say companies will use this flexibility to beat the system.

White said companies will be able to file easily because the pay ratio rule “provides companies with substantial flexibility that allows them to use statistical sampling to estimate the median, rather than fully calculating it by using their entire payroll, once every three years.”

However experts say companies worried about reporting a big gap in pay can use the flexibility allowed to their advantage by picking the date they will report on, as long as it is within the last three months of their most recent fiscal year.

The director of the largest union in the U.S, AFL-CIO, Heather Slavkin Corzo, said the rule also allows companies to distort their figures by not including seasonal workers.

“For a retail company with a Dec. 31 fiscal year-end, the workforce is going to look very different on Oct. 1 than it would on Dec. 23,” she said. She cited as an example United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) which last year said it expected to hire at least 90,000 seasonal employees to meet the Christmas rush, when really excluding such workers, it employed 435,000 at the end of 2014.

The experts said the new law also allows companies to not count contractors and other “independent entities,” which would work to the advantage of U.S. based retail giants like L Brands Inc and Nike Inc. , which outsource manufacturing.

“If their business model relies on a high concentration of low-wage workers that aren’t part of their formal workforce, the number may appear to be much better than if you actually included the people who are responsible for producing the goods,” said Slavkin Corzo.

Ron Hira, Harvard University associate professor of political science, said many technology companies and financial firms also used a significant number of contractors.

Hira said companies could omit some staff and workers overseas as the new rules allow companies to not count up to 5 percent of overseas staff, which could lower ratios for businesses with workers earning significantly less abroad. He said many large banks had shifted their technology, legal operations and back-office operations to low-wage countries like the Philippines and India.

“The term of art they use is that they’ve ‘rebalanced their workforce,’” Hira said. “We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people that are overseas.”

Companies could also exclude workers located in countries with privacy laws that prohibit sharing of information such as payroll data, according to the ruling. The SEC notes that jurisdictions including China and Mexico, which are vital manufacturing hubs for many U.S. companies, have adopted or are considering laws that limit access to compensation data.

“How can a company possibly file financial statements if they can’t get information about what they’re paying their workers?” Slavkin Corzo said. “It’s hard to imagine that this would prevent the transfer of anonymized data, which would be perfectly fine to use in determining the median.”

Another loophole experts have found allows for CEO sign on packages to be ignored. They say when a new CEO is hired , the law allows for two options – the business can combine pay for both the new and former CEO for the year, or it can annualize the compensation for the CEO on the day that median pay was defined. This means a company could pick their calculation day or day of CEO transition, to use amounts for the lower-paid executive. With incoming CEOs often receiving packages heavy with equity, the ration could also be skewed.

Another loophole for boards worried about showing a big gap in pay for its 2017 fiscal year could load up their CEO’s financial package for 2016, and then slash it the following year.