• What we know about the attack on Charlie Hebdo

    The two gunmen who attacked the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo — Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said, 34 — are French citizens of Algerian origin. Cherif Kouachi has been involved in radical Islamic activities in France for over a decade, and served time in jail for his 2005 attempt to go to Iraq to join the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda. In the last three years he was active in facilitating the travel of French Muslims to Syria to fight the Assad regime. The third man believed to have been involved in the attack, 18-year old high school student Hamyd Mourad, was allegedly the driver of the car in which the attacker arrived at the magazine’s office and then escaped. He turned himself in to the police, and is now being interrogated. Thousands of police officers and security services personnel have been conducting a massive manhunt for the two brothers, focusing on the city of Reims – a city of about 200,000 located eighty miles northeast of Paris, in the Champagne-Ardenne region.

  • Charlie Hebdo offends – and we must defend its right to do so

    Now we must reaffirm the importance of absolute freedom of expression in an open society — regardless of how offensive it might be to some and, on occasion, how puerile it may become. Freedom of expression is absolute or it is nothing at all. It cannot be parceled out so that we are only free at particular times or in specific circumstances. That’s how it becomes a privilege rather than a right. That’s how the self-appointed guardians get to decide what is and isn’t acceptable. Unpalatable as it may be on occasion, we all have the responsibility to engage robustly with those we dislike, or even despise. We have to do it in a manner that excludes violence and encourages discourse, debate, and clarification. We must recognize and face the problem: An over-sensitive culture has emerged — not in some far-away place but right here in the West. Violent attacks like those in Paris are still rare but this is a culture that will engender many future acts of conflict unless we regain the real sense of what tolerance means. It is not indifference to others or turning a blind eye but healthy, pointed and, on occasion, offensive engagement.

  • Research advocates urge 114th Congress to act on Top 5 science priorities in first 100 days

    Research!America urged the 114th Congress to take action on five science priorities in the first 100 days of the legislative session in order to elevate research and innovation on the U.S. agenda. The organizations says that the five priorities: end sequestration, increase funding for U.S. research agencies, advance the 21st Century Cures initiative, repeal the medical device tax, and enact a permanent and enhanced R&D tax credit.

  • Young researchers increasingly denied research grants, putting the future of U.S. science at risk

    America’s youngest scientists, increasingly losing research dollars, are leaving the academic biomedical workforce, a brain drain that poses grave risks for the future of science, according to an article published this week by Johns Hopkins University president Ronald J. Daniels. For example, the number of principal investigators with a leading National Institutes of Health grant who are 36 years old or younger dropped from 18 percent in 1983 to 3 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the average age when a scientist with a medical degree gets her first of these grants has risen from just under 38 years old in 1980 to more than 45 in 2013.

  • Gunmen kill 12 at the office of French satirical magazine critical of Islam

    Two hooded Islamist gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing ten journalists and editors and two policemen and injuring seven, several of them in critical condition. The assailants entered the editorial offices of the magazine and opened fire with assault rifles, before escaping the building and engaging the police on the street outside in a heavy fire exchange, killing two of the police officers. They managed to get into their car and fleets with police in the street outside before escaping by car.

     

  • DHS releases the wrong FOIA-requested documents, exposing infrastructure vulnerabilities

    On 3 July 2014, DHS, responding to a Freedom of Information Act(FOIA) request on Operation Aurora, a malware attack on Google, instead released more than 800 pages of documents related to the Aurora Project, a 2007 research effort led by Idaho National Laboratoryto show the cyber vulnerabilities of U.S. power and water systems, including electrical generators and water pumps. The research project found that once these infrastructure systems are infiltrated, a cyberattack can remotely control key circuit breakers, thereby throwing a machine’s rotating parts out of synchronization and causing parts of the system to break down.

  • Agroterrorism is a major threat to America: Experts

    The economic effects of a successful attack on the U.S. food supply would be devastating, as agriculture accounts for roughly 13 percent of the country’s gross annual domestic product. An introduction of deadly pathogens into U.S. livestock, poultry, or crops would not only result in a disease outbreak, but would disrupt the global food industry and drive up food prices. Agroterrorism is not limited to the intentional introduction of harmful pathogens into U.S. farms and livestock. Terrorists can also cyberattack industrial agriculture systems responsible for operating feeding machines, maintaining milk temperatures, and processing foods.

  • HarperCollins: Israel yok!

    HarperCollins, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, has just published the glossy Collins Middle East Atlas, which, the publisher says, was designed for use in Middle Eastern schools. The publisher describes the book as “an ideal school atlas for young primary school geographers,” which “enables students to learn about the world today by exploring clear and engaging maps.” There was only one problem: Israel was omitted from the map of the Middle East: A map of the area shows Jordan and Syria extending all the way to the Mediterranean, with Gaza and the West Bank both labeled, but Israel does not appear. “Way to go Collins!” wrote one reviewer. “While we’re at it, let’s delete Sweden from the map of Europe, Venezuela from the map of South America, and Russia entirely. In fact, let’s all design our own maps of the world and leave out all the countries we don’t particularly care for.” Retreating in the face of a wave scathing criticism, HarperCollins said it would withdraw the book from the market and pulp it.

  • Building better butt bombs: Al Qaeda’s instructions to followers

    Five years after using a “bum bomb” for the first time – on 28 August 2009, against the Saudi deputy interior minister – al Qaeda bomb makers are at it again. Having actively searched for new and better ways to take advantage of privacy (“don’t touch my junk”) considerations which govern airport security checks, one of the organization’s bomb makers goes public. The latest issue of Inspire, the organization’s English-language magazine, contains a detailed 22-page article on how to construct a butt bomb and conceal it in one’s anal cavity. The article alsoadvises would-be suicide bombers on where to sit on the airplane to ensure the most destruction, and also recommends using the hidden bomb for assassination attempts.

  • N.C. panel releases much-anticipated draft of sea-level rise forecast

    Last week, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commissionadvisory science panel released its draft copyof sea-level rise forecast for several regions along the North Carolina coast over the next thirty years. The state’s General Assembly rejected a similar report in 2010 after coastal developers and some Republican legislators claimed that the report was biased. A 2012 state law bans state agencies from taking any action based on the sea-level forecast until 1 July 2016.Analysts say that the18-months wait untilstate agencies can take sea-level rise forecast into account may put North Carolina behind other East Coast states which have already begun to adapt to sea-level rise by updating their zoning laws, construction elevation requirements, and major infrastructure plans.

  • A combination ricin/anthrax vaccine shows promise

    Soligenix, Inc. last month announced the publication of data demonstrating that the combination of RiVax and VeloThrax induces protective immunity to both ricin toxin and anthrax toxin exposure. RiVax is the company’s candidate vaccine for the prevention of exposure to ricin toxin using an antigen which is completely devoid of the toxic activity of ricin. VeloThrax is the company’s candidate vaccine which employs a derivative of recombinant protective antigen, termed Dominant Negative Inhibitor (DNI), which is a candidate for inclusion in a next generation anthrax vaccine.

  • France set to intervene in Libya “within three months”: Diplomats

    Since the November 2011 toppling of Col. Qaddafi, Libya has ceased to exist as a unitary, cohesive state. Different armed militias control different parts of the country, and two governments and two parliaments claim to be the country’s legitimate rulers: The internationally recognized government operates out of Tobruk in northeast Libya, while the Islamist-led Libya Dawn government – backed by Turkey and Qatar – operates out of the capital Tripoli, which Dawn occupied in August. Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s defense minister, said on Saturday that “the moment has come” to address the growing unrest in Libya, adding that France could launch a military intervention in Libya within three months. The French defense minister added that the question currently under discussion in Paris is not whether France will launch military strikes against the Islamist militias in Libya, but when.

  • Former Navy SEALs member under NCIS investigation for allegedly revealing secrets

    Former U.S. Navy SEALs Chief Special Warfare Operator Robert O’Neill, who claimed to have killed Osama bin Laden in the Navy SEALsraid, is under criminal investigation for possibly sharing classified information. Even if the NCIS concluded that O’Neill did not release any classified information, the SEALs code of silence has still been violated, veterans say.

  • Kenya’s efforts to counter al- Shabaab faulted as heavy-handed

    As Somali-based al-Shabaab loses ground in its home country to international forces backed by the United States, the United Nations, and the African Union, it has increased its attacks in Kenya, specifically, attacks on Christians who live in towns near Kenya’s border with Somalia. To counter al-Shabaab’s operations in Kenyan security forces have begun to launch attacks on suspected terrorists in Kenya. Human rights groups have documented assassinations and disappearances of terrorism suspects by Kenya’s counterterrorism units. Such raids only act as a recruitment tool for al-Shabaab, say analysts.

  • Insurance firms, developers face uncertainty now that TRIA has expired

    Insurance firms and commercial property developers are uncertain about how the commercial real estate industry will react now that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) has expired. Many commercial property developers relied on TRIA to fulfill their loan requirements. Analysts predict real estate projects and construction jobs in Maryland, for example, will be affected by the failure to extend TRIA.