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Trump's “Antifa” Accusations Spark Debate in Germany, the Movement's Birthplace
After Donald Trump claimed most protesters in the U.S. were “antifa,” Germany’s Social Democrats rushed to declare solidarity with the movement. But which movement? And why did other politicians object? What the word means is simple enough in German. Antifa is short for antifaschistisch, or anti-Fascist. In the most literal sense, one might hope this label could apply to almost all modern German people and politicians. But does antifa refer to all those opposed to fascism, or does it refer only to black-clad anarchists and leftists staring down German police in the streets?
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Militarization Has Fostered a Policing Culture that Sets up Protesters as “The Enemy”
The militarization of police departments has been a feature of U.S. domestic law enforcement since the 9/11 attacks. What is clear from the latest round of protest and response, is that despite efforts to promote de-escalation as a policy, police culture appears to be stuck in an “us vs. them” mentality.
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Heightened Risks When Pandemic and Hurricane Season Overlap
Researchers studying the ability of coastal communities to respond to disasters say that combined disasters may make community recovery vastly more difficult. What they have found serves as a stark warning to policymakers preparing for hurricane season during a pandemic. One of the main worries is that there will be significant delays in recovery efforts if front-line workers are not kept healthy.
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A Step Closer to Being Able to Forecast Earthquakes
Scientists identify specific conditions that cause tectonic plates to slowly creep underneath one another rather than generate potentially catastrophic earthquakes. This could potentially contribute to solving one of the greatest challenges that faces seismologists, which is to be able to forecast earthquakes with enough precision to save lives and reduce the economic damage that is caused.
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Search-and-Rescue Algorithm Identifies Hidden “Traps” in Ocean Waters
When an object or person goes missing at sea, the complex, constantly changing conditions of the ocean can confound and delay critical search-and-rescue operations. Now researchers have developed a technique they hope will help first responders quickly zero in on regions of the sea where missing objects or people are likely to be.
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Riots, White Supremacy and Accelerationism
White supremacists are gleeful as police violence and the resulting rioting tear apart cities, Dan Byman writes. “Even if the unrest ends in the weeks to come, they may look back at the violence as a win for their side,” he writes. “Even if the violence declines, it may bolster an increasingly important white supremacist concept—’accelerationism.’”
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“Domestic Terrorist Actors” Could Exploit Floyd Protests, DHS Memo Warns
The DHS intelligence unit has sent out a memo to law enforcement officials around the country warning of the mobilization of far-right domestic terrorists and violent extremists in the context of a national crisis. Betsy Woodruff Swan and Natasha Bertrand write that this is at least the fifth DHS has sent out to law enforcement officials in the last two months warning of the growing danger of far-right violent extremists.
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The Killing of Walter Lübcke: One Year Later, Some Questions Remain
One year ago, Walter Lübcke, a member of Angela Merkel’s conservatives, was shot and killed in his garden, allegedly by a far-right extremist. Germany stepped up measures at tackling extremism, but has it been enough?
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Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists
Mia Bloom, a Georgia State professor and an expert on political violence and terrorism, writes that the demonstrations in honor of George Floyd have been infiltrated by white nationalists who adhere to the accelerationist ideology, and that at least part of the violence and destruction – as clearly seen on TV screens – have been perpetrated by these extremists. “The accelerationists, if you have never heard the term, are an extreme subset of white nationalism whose goal is to bring about chaos and destruction,” she writes. Since Western governments are inherently corrupt, “the best (and only) thing supremacists can do is to accelerate the end of society by sowing chaos and aggravating political tensions.”
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Drones, Machine Learning to Detect Dangerous “Butterfly” Landmines
It is estimated that there are at least 100 million military munitions and explosives of concern devices in the world, of various size, shape and composition. Millions of these are surface plastic landmines with low-pressure triggers, such as the mass-produced Soviet PFM-1 “butterfly” landmine. Nicknamed for their small size and butterfly-like shape, these mines are extremely difficult to locate and clear. Using advanced machine learning, drones could be used to detect these dangerous “butterfly” landmines in remote regions of post-conflict countries.
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U.S. Ending Sanctions Waivers on Iran's Civilian Nuclear Program
The United States has announced it will end sanctions waivers that allow Russian, Chinese, and European firms to carry out civilian nuclear cooperation with Iran, effectively scrapping the last remnants of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a move dismissed by Tehran as “desperate.”
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Snapback of Sanctions under the Terms of the Nuclear Deal Is Fully Justified Today
“If Iran today wants a serious discussion about sanctions relief, it should start by abandoning the key threat Tehran poses to international peace and security: its uranium enrichment program,” writes David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and the president of the Institute for Science and International Security. “Instead, Iran holds its own people hostage over the deadly coronavirus outbreak in a cynical campaign for wholesale sanctions relief.” The willingness of Iran’s leadership to refuse epidemic aid and thus dramatically, and unnecessarily, increase the number of sick and dying Iranians; the willing of the leadership to intensify and deepen the severe economic deprivation and misery across the country – and do all that in order to grow an economically nonviable, menacing uranium enrichment program — “That alone should lead all to consider just what is the real purpose of Iran’s enrichment program,” Albright writes.
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Taking a Cue from Nature to Create Bulletproof Coatings
Shrimp, lobsters and mushrooms may not seem like great tools for the battlefield, but three engineers from the University of Houston are using chitin – a derivative of glucose found in the cellular walls of arthropods and fungi – and 3D printing techniques to produce high-impact multilayered coatings that can protect soldiers against bullets, lasers, toxic gas and other dangers.
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Germany Sees Rise in Anti-Semitic, Political Crimes
Germany saw a rise both far-right and far-left crimes in 2019, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday. The country’s police recorded just over 41,000 cases of politically motivated crime last year, representing a rise of 14.2 percent compared to 2018, when there were just over 36,000. “The biggest threat comes from the far-right, we have to see that clearly,” Seehofer said.
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Wildfires New Algorithm Predicts the Difficulty in Fighting Fire
When facing an uncontrolled fire blazing through hundreds of hectares, many questions arise that need urgent answers: Where should we start? What place presents less difficulty? What areas are already lost? How can we prioritize management tasks? Researchers have developed an algorithm which is able to respond to these questions and has turned mathematics into a real ally for firefighting.
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More headlines
The long view
AI-Controlled Fighter Jets May Be Closer Than We Think — and Would Change the Face of Warfare
Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit.
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
Autonomous Weapon Systems: No Human-in-the-Loop Required, and Other Myths Dispelled
“The United States has a strong policy on autonomy in weapon systems that simultaneously enables their development and deployment and ensures they could be used in an effective manner, meaning the systems work as intended, with the same minimal risk of accidents or errors that all weapon systems have,” Michael Horowitz writes.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”