• Questions over Texas police linking chewable African plant to terrorism

    Khat is a chewable African plant containing two active chemical substances — cathinone and cathine – which have a narcotic effect. Chewing the plant is common among men in the Horn of Africa and Yemen. The chemicals are banned in the United States, although the plant itself is not. Texas law-enforcement arrested several Muslim immigrants after a lengthy investigation found they were growing and selling khat. The police portrayed those arrested as supporters of terrorism, and suggested that the profits from the sale of khat to Muslims in the Houston area was sent abroad to support terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab. Civil rights advocates say that in this case, over-eager police and prosecution have confused traditional practice with support for terrorism.

  • France reasserting its role as Africa's indispensable power

    In March this year, rebel militias, many composed of Muslim fighters from Chad and Sudan, overthrew the government, a move which has resulted in spreading lawlessness among rival warlords, with the risk of the disintegration of the country and sectarian war spilling beyond the country’s borders distinct possibilities. As was the case in Mali earlier this year, France has decided to put its foot down, sending hundreds of troops to the capital Bangui to restore order and restrain the lawless rebels. “The challenge of this intervention [in the Central African Republic],” on analyst wrote, “lies in the ‘return’ of France to the dark continent after decades of interference followed by a period of relative indifference or misstatements. If France succeeds in its Central African mission, it will have recovered a good part of its influence, positioning itself as an indispensable partner in those places where it risked becoming a vague memory.”

  • More states move to limit LPR use

    Law-enforcement units across the United States have been using license plate readers (LPRs) to monitor vehicles on public roads in order to locate missing individuals, investigate murderers, or track hit-and-run drivers. Privacy advocates are concerned with the wholesale storage of license plate information, and the fact that some municipalities have no limits on how long plate numbers can be stored. LPRs proponents are worried that the recent revelations about the NSA surveillance programs make it difficult for LPRs and other law-enforcement technology to get a fair hearing.

  • Wisconsin legislature considering restriction on LPRs

    State legislators in Wisconsin have proposed a law to limit the use of license plate readers, drawing criticism from local law enforcement. Republican state Representative David Craig, the sponsor of the proposed legislation, said: “The vast majority of [the LPR] images are becoming nothing more than a database of the whereabouts of average citizens. The time has come to ensure the civil rights of citizens are not being violated, while also ensuring law enforcement has the tools needed to effectively enforce our state’s laws.”

  • FY 2012 sees first constant-dollar decline in higher education R&D since FY 1974

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) says that university spending on R&D in all fields totaled $65.8 billion in FY 2012. After adjusting for inflation, higher education R&D declined by 1 percent in FY 2012. This represents the first constant-dollar decline since FY 1974 and ends a period of modest growth in higher education R&D during FYs 2009-11, when R&D expenditures increased an average of 5 percent each year.

  • U.S. urges China to rescind unilateral air defense move to avoid regional confrontation

    The United States yesterday (Monday) called on China to rescind its newly declared air defense identification zone (ADIZ), warning China that it was risking a dangerous confrontation with Japan and other East Asian countries. Japan has already announced it was not recognizing China’s unilateral move, and Japanese airlines passing through the ADIZ declared by China are not currently informing the Chinese authorities of their flight plans. The aircraft of other countries, including those flown by U.S. and South Korean airlines, are submitting information to the Chinese (U.S. airlines are follow guidance issued last week by the FAA, which said that for safety reasons, U.S. airlines should comply with Chinese instructions). Last week the United States explicitly said that the U.S. treaty to defend Japan militarily if Japan were attacked applies to territory covered by China’s ADIZ, but Japan’s confidence in the U.S. commitment is said to have been shaken by the FAA guidance requiring U.S. airlines’ compliance.

  • New search tool finds you, even in untagged photos

    A new algorithm designed at the University of Toronto has the power profoundly to change the way we find photos among the billions on social media sites such as Facebook and Flickr. The search tool uses tag locations to quantify relationships between individuals, even those not tagged in any given photo.

  • East Asia tensions on the rise as China plans more unilateral moves

    The Obama administration has advised American commercial airlines to comply with China’s demand to be notified in advance of all aircraft passing through China’s newly – and unilaterally — defined Air Defense Identification Zone(ADIZ). In contrast, Japan’s government has notified its commercial airlines to proceed with business as usual. Regional tensions are on the rise as China has said it expects to set up other ADIZs within the region.

  • Nigerian vigilantes join fight against Islamist Boko Haram

    In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria where the Islamist Boko Haram has emerged, a network of vigilantes, called the Civilian JTF, is fighting the militants to gain back control of the local economy and daily life. Many Nigerians are not persuaded the Nigerian military is doing all it could to defeat the Islamist insurgency.

  • Obama chooses John Roth for DHS IG

    The DHS Inspector General post has been vacant since early 2011, when Richard Skinner retired. Lawmakers say they welcome President Obama’s nomination of John Roth for the position. Roth has held different positions at the Department of Justice, and since last year has served as the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s office of criminal investigations. The inspector general’s office is currently headed by Charles Edwards, who has been under investigation for alleged improprieties, including complaints that he violated anti-nepotism rules by employing his wife as a supervisory auditor and changed audit findings in response to political pressure. Lawmakers have called on him to resign.

  • U.S., Japan reject China’s unilateral East China Sea claims

    The Chinese government this past weekend has declared the country’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), effective immediately. The zone covers an area in the East China Sea — two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom – which includes islands claimed by both China and Japan. China calls them the Diaoyou islands, while Japan calls them the Senkaku islands. The United States and Japan said they would not abide by China’s unilateral decision, and on Tuesday the United States sent two B-52s long-range bombers to conduct “routine training mission” through the airspace China declared as its own, and did so without following China’s instructions about how aircraft should conduct themselves in that space.

  • Security Council condemns LRA’s “war crimes”

    The UN Security Council has strongly condemned the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its use of children in armed conflict. The council demanded that the group immediately end all hostilities, release all abductees, and disarm and demobilize.

  • Uranium, plutonium, heavy water … why Iran’s nuclear deal matters

    The agreement reached with Iran will limit enrichment to 5 percent U-235 and allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors regular visits (even daily) to their facilities. The inspectors can easily determine the ratios of U-235 and Pu-239 in the input fuel and waste streams via the characteristic radiation signatures of the isotopes involved. These stand out like a sore thumb to their instruments. In addition, the IAEA will measure the amount of U-235 employed at each facility to determine if any of the uranium is diverted to undisclosed locations. While this arrangement is operating it is highly unlikely that Iran will be able to build nuclear weapons.

  • Community ties affect terrorist groups’ targeting of civilians

    A new study finds terrorist groups which are embedded into the society around them may choose tactics that compromise the group’s strategic or ideological priorities in order to avoid alienating local communities. The study highlights how community condemnation generates restraint in terrorists’ targeting of civilians, while endorsements may facilitate such attacks.

  • Exploring “culture of surveillance” in the United States

    Recent revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been analyzing the communication records of all U.S. citizens have many talking about the topic of “mass surveillance” by the government. A University of Kansas sociologist who has been documenting what he calls our “culture of surveillance” for nearly twenty years argues, however, that these developments are part of deeper social and cultural changes going on for quite some time. Professor William Staples focuses his attention on the relatively mundane techniques of keeping a close watch of people — what he has dubbed the “Tiny Brothers” — which are increasingly present in the workplace, school, home, and community.