 Nearly
140 countries voted in the U.N. on Thursday to recognize the
Palestinian territories as a "nonmember observer state" over the
strenuous objections of Israel and the U.S., marking a milestone with
potentially far-reaching consequences for the decades-old Arab-Israeli
conflict.The 138-9 vote, with 41 abstentions, came on the 65th
anniversary of the assembly's resolution calling for the partition of
British mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.The new status, which is akin to the Vatican's own stature in the world body, marked a rare victory for the Fatah party's diplomatic path toward statehood after its rival Hamas's military strategy had taken the spotlight during the recent Gaza conflict. Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah, who were crowded around outdoor television screens during the vote in New York erupted into applause, whistles and hugs, as some people fired guns into the air and beeped car horns in celebration. "We didn't come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, told the assembly to a standing ovation. The immediate question was whether the vote spurs or further delays the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel says are needed to finalize the status of the West Bank and Gaza territories. While Mr. Abbas argued the vote would create the momentum to resume moribund talks, the U.S. and Israel denounced the vote as a "unilateral" move in the multilateral assembly. "Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles to peace," said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. "No resolution can create a state where none exists." She added, "Palestinians will wake up tomorrow and find that little has changed saved the prospect of direct talks have receded." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the vote as an empty gesture that makes little difference for Palestinians, and makes peace prospects more remote. "The decision at the U.N. today won't change a thing on the ground,'' he said prior to the vote. "Peace will be reached through agreements reached between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and not through declarations passed at the U.N.'' Israel and the U.S. had put intense pressure on Mr. Abbas to put off the vote, but in recent days toned down their criticism as its passage seemed inevitable. "There's no denying it's a moral boost for them, but there's little changed in their status,'' said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "If they want to take the confrontation to other international bodies, there will be a firm response, which will be decided upon in due course." The U.S. has been wary of weakening Mr. Abbas in the wake of the conflict in Gaza. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Palestinian leader in Ramallah last week, in part, to strengthen him in the face of Hamas's military operations against Israel, U.S. officials say. The State Department earlier Thursday made it clear that it would continue to work with Mr. Abbas on the peace process irrespective of the result of the U.N. vote. "Regardless of what happens in New York today, the United States is going to continue to try to bring these parties back to the table," State Department spokeswoman, Vitoria Nuland, said. "Obviously we're going to. The resident is committed to that, and I think the only question is what kind of environment we're working in." The U.S. Congress, however, could still penalize Mr. Abbas and his Palestinian Authority. On Thursday, lawmakers introduced three separate initiatives in response to the positive U.N. vote. Congress has threatened to cut off funding to the authority and to any U.N. agency Palestinians might join as a result of their U.N. upgrade. One bipartisan initiative submitted by four senators, including Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) called for the shuttering of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's office in Washington and said aid to the Palestinian Authority should be cut off if the Palestinians supported any cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court. "Granting United Nations membership to the Palestinian authority is a nightmare in the making for the peace process and future relations between the Congress and U.N," Sen. Graham said in a statement. "Granting a form of member-status to the Palestinians goes around the only viable way to negotiate a two state solution, that's between the parties themselves." The vote picks up from the 1947 resolution, which the Palestinians and most Arab countries had rejected, leading to war with Israel and the Palestinians without a state. The Palestine Liberation Organization accepted the resolution when it declared independence in 1988. The vote on Thursday ratifies the decision of the more than 130 countries that had already recognized a Palestinian state since then. Even Hamas, which had consistently opposed the U.N. bid, reversed course on Sunday, declaring its support in a tacit recognition of the vote's political implications. Diplomats say a groundswell of support for the Palestinian Authority and its U.N. upgrade gained ground because the recent eight-day war in Gaza politically strengthened Hamas at the expense of the more pro-western Palestinian Authority. The resolution turned the tables, bolstering the authority at Hamas's expense, they said. The authority has renounced violence, recognized Israel's right to exist and diplomats say is considered a more reliable negotiating partner than Hamas. European countries, including Denmark, France, Spain and Switzerland, were concerned over Hamas's raised international stature after the recent Gaza conflict, diplomats said. "The war bolstered the prestige of Hamas because of its resilience against Israel and the whole idea now is saving Abbas," said a European diplomat. "Fatah is in a politically difficult situation and the idea is to try to restore or at least heal their political wounds, and perhaps provide them with some political prestige by attaining a new status at the U.N." As an upgraded observer state, the Palestinian territories could join treaties and specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Criminal Court, officials said. That would give it legal rights over its territorial waters and air space, and would allow Palestinians to sue for control in the International Court of Justice and to bring war crimes charges against Israel in the ICC. Mr. Abbas made no reference to joining the ICC or other treaties. But he issued an explicit warning to Israel. "What permits the Israeli government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences," he said. "The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation." The practical implications of Thursday's vote are far from certain. The International Court of Justice, a U.N. court, in 2004 ruled that Israel violated international law with its security barrier and called on Israel to tear down sections in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel ignored the ruling and could be expected to do the same with any future court decisions on territorial waters and air space. If the ICC were to indict Israeli officials on war crimes charges, they couldn't be arrested on Israeli territory, though traveling to countries that are ICC members could become problematic. As the crowd waved flags in Ramallah, Abbas supports danced to festive music with lyrics waxing nostalgic Fatah's history as an armed militia. "This is very important. The world is going to put Palestine on the map,'' said Mohammed el Bagah, 27 years old. "I expect the economy to improve and open up. It's not going to happen over night. Things will change over time." (Note From Stan: Dear close friends: As you know my wife Leslie was told in an audible voice the six headlines leading to the fall of America, I mean specifically the Russian attack on America. They were: On January 22, 2006 Leslie heard the audible words, “Israel refuses to help America. Then she heard the following headlines in her heart. This was NOT the order in which she heard them. This is my personal guess as to the order they will be fulfilled. These have been summarized from both dreams: Prophecies from Arafat in the hospital dream:
“Arafat will die in the hospital”
“Large amounts of oil will be discovered in Israel”
Then she heard my [Stan’s] voice quoting the angel who spoke the warning to Dumitru Duduman, “The fall of America will start with an internal revolution started by the communists. Some of the people will start fighting against the government. The government will be busy with internal problems, then from the oceans, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Central America and two other countries will attack and destroy America in one hour.” I say this because I have been getting many calls and emails saying “This is it!!! They have given the PA a State!!!!” But, no this is only recognition by the UN. It is definitely a step in that direction, but we are looking for ISRAEL to give the PA a State to fulfill the prophecy and specifically we are looking for the specific words in the newspaper headline, “OMER USHERS IN PALESTINIAN STATE” to fulfill that specific part of the prophecy. God bless, Stan) |
|
Leave it to legendary Walter Pincus from the Washington Post to flesh out a Request for Proposal construction project planned for Israel called Site 911.
The
oddly named project will cost up to $100 million, take more than two
years to complete, and can only be built by workers from specific
countries with proper security clearances. Palestinians need not apply.
When complete the well-guarded compound will have five levels buried underground and six additional outbuildings on the above grounds, within the perimeter. At about 127,000 square feet, the first three floors will house classrooms, an auditorium, and a laboratory — all wedged behind shock resistant doors — with radiation protection and massive security. Only one gate will allow workers entrance and exit during the project and that will be guarded by only Israelis. The bottom two floors are smaller, according to the full line of schematics uploaded to the Army's Acquisition Business Web Site, and possibly used for equipment and storage. As impressive as the American design features already are, Ada Karmi-Melamede Architects will decorate the entire site with rocks it chooses, but are paid for by the contractor, and provide three outdoor picnic tables. Pincus also found this detailed description of the mezuzahs that will adorn every door in the facility:
These mezuzas, notes the [US Army]
Corps, “shall be written in inerasable ink, on . . . uncoated leather
parchment” and be handwritten by a scribe “holding a written
authorization according to Jewish law.” The writing may be “Ashkenazik
or Sepharadik” but “not a mixture” and “must be uniform.”
Also,
“The Mezuzahs shall be proof-read by a computer at an authorized
institution for Mezuzah inspection, as well as manually proof-read for
the form of the letters by a proof-reader authorized by the Chief
Rabbinate.”
The mezuza shall be supplied with an aluminum housing with
holes so it can be connected to the door frame or opening. Finally, “All
Mezuzahs for the facility shall be affixed by the Base’s Rabbi or his
appointed representative and not by the contractor staff.”
Also in the $100 million range, Pincus finds the “complex facility with site development challenges” requiring services that include “electrical, communication, mechanical/ HVAC [heating, ventilation, air conditioning] and plumbing” requirements telling; and along with the fact that the contractor must posses a U.S. or Israeli Secret Security Clearance, he believes this phase to be a secure command center. Pulitzer Prize winning, Yale grad, born in 1932 whose worked intelligence and media in D.C. since 1955 closes his piece with these shadowy words. "The purpose of Site 911 is [un] clear." |
|
The report found that a large proportion of pork products harbour bacteria - but the prevalence of yersinia enterocolitica is the most striking finding. The food-borne pathogen was discovered in 69 per cent of all raw meat sampled in the study, carried out by Consumer Reports. Threat: A study, conducted by Consumer Reports, found that 69 per cent of the raw pork sampled contained the pathogen yersinia enterocolitica, which can lead to sickness More well-known bacteria were significantly less prevalent in the study. Salmonella was found in only four per cent of products, while three per cent of meat samples tested positive for listeria. Eleven percent of samples, most of which were taken from popular supermarkets, contained the enterococcus bacteria and seven percent contained staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Yersinia enterocolitica affects more than 100,000 Americans every year, many of whom are children, and can induce fever, cramps and diarrhea. The bacteria though is relatively unheard of and for every diagnosis it is estimated that 120 cases go undetected. The study sampled a range of commonly consumed products, made up of 148 pork chops and 50 ground pork samples. The ground pork samples proved more likely to carry bacteria than the chop samples. Urvashi Rangan, who helped compile the report, described the results as 'concerning'. He told ABCNews: 'It’s hard to say that there was no problem. It shows that there needs to be better hygiene at animal plants. Yersinia wasn’t even being monitored for.' The study sampled 148 pork chop and 50 ground pork products. It found a range of pathogens in the meat, including salmonella, listeria and enterococcus He emphasised the importance of cooking raw meat properly to kill bacteria, adding: 'Anything that touches raw meat should go into the dishwasher before touching anything else.' The study also found that many of the pathogens found were resistant to at least one form of antibiotic. Critics argue that the use of therapeutic antibiotics in livestock increases the levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment. The Pork Producer's Council however questioned the validity of the study given the sample size used. It said that the 198 samples did 'not provide a nationally informative estimate of the true prevalence of the cited bacteria on meat'. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said: 'USDA will remain vigilant against emerging and evolving threats to the safety of America’s supply of meat, poultry and processed egg products, and we will continue to work with the industry to ensure companies are following food safety procedures in addition to looking for new ways to strengthen the protection of public health.' |
|
Some
Mississippi parents are learning a new routine when they drop their
kids off at day care centers that are taking part in a new pilot program
aimed at combating fraud and saving the state money.
Under the program, the state scans parents' fingerprints to capture biometric information, and that information is turned into a number. Then, at a day care center, parents dropping off or picking up their kids put their fingers on a pad, and a small keyboard records the exact time a child is checked in or out. But only the parents of kids who receive subsidized child care have to do the scans, and the program is roiling some parents and day care workers. At Northtown Child Development Center in Jackson, one of the pilot sites, when Kim Kimbrough puts her finger on the scanner to check in her 3-year-old son, she gets a receipt before she heads to her job at a furniture store. Kimbrough says her friends who used to help pick up her child are hesitant to sign up. "A lot of people don't want to go down there and get fingerprinted 'cause they feel it's a hassle," Kimbrough says. "They don't like the idea. I really don't like it, but if that's what I have to do to stay on child care, I'll do it." Concerns About Discrimination The state's early child care program provides vouchers to low-income parents to help cover the cost of day care, so parents can work or go to school. More than 18,000 Mississippi children are enrolled in the program, and another 8,000 are on a waiting list. Many day care administrators say finger scanning is unnecessary and that if parents refuse to do it, some centers would lose children and could close. They say they're forced to single out those who are receiving aid and set up a new sign-in process just for them. Carol Burnett, director of the nonprofit Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, says providers feel that it is going to be a hardship, or discriminatory. "The parents who have a subsidy have to come through and scan their finger at this machine, and the parents that aren't on the subsidy program don't have to do that," Burnett says. "So you've got two lines of people who are obviously distinguished by who's got the subsidy and who doesn't." Across town at the Jamboree Child Development Center, Catreennia Harris, a full-time student, tells the center's director she's worried that she'll be stereotyped when the new system makes it obvious she gets subsidized child care, which she calls certificates. "I have certificates, but you don't want everybody to know everything you do or everything you get," Harris says. "And you have to scan your finger and everybody just [thinks], 'Oh yeah, she's on certificate. I bet she's on welfare, and she gets food stamps,' and all that. Just singling people out." Concerns About Fraud But the state says the system will prevent fraud and save money. Officials say centers that may have falsified attendance won't be able to do that and are likely to drop out of the program. And children who have too many absences could lose their vouchers. The state spent $1.7 million to buy the equipment, and it will pay a subsidiary of Xerox nearly $13 million over five years to manage the system. "Mississippi has always been just about the last in everything," says Jill Dent of Mississippi's Department of Human Services. "So we're taking a step forward, and we want to be one of the first states that utilize technology to be able to push a state forward." Mississippi officials point to a similar program in Louisiana that started in 2010 that they say has been successful. Dent says her state will save at least 40 percent in administrative costs and another 25 percent on costs related to fraud. She rejects the idea that the system is discriminatory. "Directors can find a way, if they want to do this differently in their center and keep the machine in a different room, they can do that," Dent says. "But, you know, if parents want to continue with the program, this is just part of the system." But in Mississippi, there's so much opposition that some centers have opted out of the pilot program. Sixteen day care centers are currently enrolled in the pilot program, with some planning to drop out this month. State officials say 16 additional centers will be added Dec. 1. The finger scanning policy was set to take effect statewide this month, but state officials now say they'll hold off on full implementation until next year. |
|
Potentially troublesome genetic changes are particularly common among those of European heritage compared to those with African forebears, the research shows. "The recent dramatic increase in human population size, resulting in a deluge of rare functionally important variation, has important implications for understanding and predicting current and future patterns of human disease and evolution," write the authors of the new report, published in hefty boffinry mag Nature. The study involved gene sequencing carried out on 6,500 Americans of both African and European heritage. Some 73 per cent of the rare (occurring in less than 0.1 per cent of the sample) variations had occurred during the last 5,000 years. Mutations - genetic variations - sometimes result in improvements (or specialisations) to a human or group of humans, as with the Europeans as they moved out of Africa and became more pale-skinned to cope with the lack of sunlight. X-Men style mutations conferring the ability to shoot frikkin' lazor beams out of one's eyes aren't possible, but things like skin colour, resistance to diseases etc are. Unfortunately a mutation is more likely to present a problem than an enhancement, and the human race in general is particularly full of them lately because of our massive population explosion over the last 5,000-odd years. Mutations are introduced in each new child (particularly if he or she has an older dad), so populations expanding fast from a small base naturally create more of them. The relatively small group of mutant Africans who moved north into Europe have subsequently expanded in population particularly enormously, and as a result people of such stock are especially loaded with rare genetic variations. "One of the most interesting points is that Europeans have more new deleterious (potentially disease-causing) mutations than Africans," says Dr. Suzanne Leal, professor of molecular and human genetics, one of the boffins who participated in the study. Over the long previous history of humanity, bad mutations (or contra-reproduction ones, anyway) would be scrubbed away by people dying before they had a chance to have kids. But this is a slow process, and it has probably been slowed down even more by modern developments like buildings, farming, medicine etc, even as the rate of mutation has shot up massively. So humanity is especially riddled with mutants (or mutier-than-normal people: everyone carries at least some mutations compared to their parents), and set to get more so. This could mean health problems - but it could also mean the future appearance of people who are truly unusual in a good (or very strange) way. Not X-Men, in all likelihood, but perhaps something just as startling. |
|
Palm scanners get thumbs up in schools, hospitals
At schools in Pinellas County, Fla., students aren't paying for lunch with cash or a card, but with a wave of their hand over a palm scanner. "It's so quick that a child could be standing in line, call mom and say, 'I forgot my lunch money today.' She's by her computer, runs her card, and by the time the child is at the front of the line, it's already recorded," says Art Dunham, director of food services for Pinellas County Schools. Students take about four seconds to swipe and pay for lunch, Dunham says, and they're doing it with 99% accuracy. "We just love it. No one wants to go back," Dunham says. Palm-scanning technology is popping up nationwide as a bona fide biometric tracker of identities, and it appears poised to make the jump from schools and hospitals to other sectors of the economy including ATM usage and retail. It also has applications as a secure identifier for cloud computing. Here's how it works: Using the same near-infrared technology that comes in a TV remote control or Nintendo Wii video game, the device takes a super high-resolution infrared photograph of the vein pattern just below a person's skin. That image, between 1.5 and 2.5 square inches, is recorded and digitized. The PalmSecure device is made by document-scanning manufacturer Fujitsu. So far, no other company has a palm scanner on the market — though at least one other company is working on the technology. Like many technological breakthroughs, the development began accidentally. A decade ago, a Fujitsu engineer in Tokyo mistakenly ran his hand over a page scanner and it yielded an output that piqued his curiosity. Testing eventually showed that the veins in the palm of your hand are as unique as a fingerprint and can be photographed under infrared light. Fujitsu has seen double-digit quarterly sales growth in each of the last two years, says Bud Yanak, director of product management and partner development for Fujitsu Frontech North America. Palm scanners are installed in more than 50 school systems and more than 160 hospital systems in 15 states and the District of Columbia, Yanak says. Pinellas County Schools were the first in the nation to bring palm scanning to their lunch lines about 18 months ago. They are being used by 50,000 students at 17 high schools and 20 middle schools. Soon, the program will expand to 60,000 more students at 80 elementary schools, Dunham says. The 2% of students who opt out can still use cash. He says hygiene isn't a concern because students don't need to touch the device, but only hold their hand directly above it, to register a scan. At hospitals, the scans are making patient registration more efficient, and prevent sharing of information by patients that could lead to insurance fraud, says Carl Bertrams, senior vice president of sales and marketing for palm scan software maker HT Systems in Tampa. A palm scan's precision record-keeping also avoids possible confusion if patients have the same name. For instance, a hospital system in the Houston area with a database of 3.5 million patients has 2,488 women in it named Maria Garcia – and 231 of them have the same date of birth, Bertrams says. HT Systems president David Wiener won't reveal revenue but says that since 2007, they've got more than 160 hospitals for clients and have scanned more than 5 million patients. At Wisconsin's UW Health system, palm scans have been used for about two years, says Dawn Gramse, a senior systems analyst. Soon, they'll start using self-service palm-swiping kiosks for patients to check themselves in. "You'd hear about other biometric scanners that are out there, and you'd see the Mission Impossible movies with the eye scanners, and you'd never think you can integrate that kind of technology into a hospital," she says, "but you can." Not everyone loves the idea of scans. Students in Carroll County, Md., schools are using lunch line palm scanners, but 7-year-old Ian Webb isn't one of them. His father, Michael Webb, decided to have Ian, a second-grader, opt out of the program at Piney Ridge Elementary in Eldersburg. "My son is not using the technology," he says. "I'll be honest, I think it's horrible. It's an intrusion into our children's rights." Webb says he's concerned that use of the scanners by elementary school students normalizes the use of biometrics and anesthetizes young children to recognizing privacy violations later in life. "I understand taking an iris scan of a pilot at an airport, so you know it's the right pilot flying the plane" he says. "This is that level of equipment they're installing in a line that serves steamed corn. I don't think it rises to the level of steamed corn." Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, says the key to this particular kind of biometrics — that is, the kind a user consents to, unlike some facial recognition software — is ensuring that all data be treated sensitively. "If it's a technology that works really well, it won't be long before you're offering your palm in a lot of different locations, and you will be concerned about who's got access to that information and what they want to do with it," Calabrese says. The technology is expanding. Fujitsu in September launched a new line of palm-scanning ATMs in Japan, according to a company news release. Customers of Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank now can access cash machines without a bank card or personal identification number. And while Fujitsu says it's the only company with such a product on the market right now, computer company Intel Corp. is working with palm-scanning technology. Palm scanning can be used as a substitute for clunky, hard-to-remember passwords, says Sridhar Iyengar, director of security research at Intel Labs. "There is a way around it, and biometrics is one option," Iyengar. "Replacing what you know — passwords — with what you are ... it's an ease of use issue. It's harder to spoof, and you're not likely to forget your fingerprints anytime soon." |
|
Discover
Financial Services Inc. employees will be able to pay by finger at
their Riverwoods headquarters' cafeteria and convenience stores as they
become the first to test a new payment system.
Discover employees who want to participate will register at an on-site kiosk, which will read an index fingerprint and assign a number to it. Each employee will also receive a key fob with a chip that includes information about their individual credit-card account as well as their fingerprint. To complete a purchase, the user will place his or her finger on a fingerprint reader near checkout, with the key fob kept nearby, such as in a pocket or purse, for the transaction to go through. One security benefit to the process is that it guarantees that the fob or credit card and its owner are at the same place at the same time. It could also be faster and more convenient as people won't have to fumble around with their credit cards. The credit-card company's test comes a few years after U.S. grocer Jewel abandoned its program with Pay by Touch, which got about $300 million in debt and equity financing from investors. In 2006, Pay by Touch said about 10,000 Chicagoans had signed up for its fingerprint-payment program. A year later, some creditors tried forcing the owner of Pay by Touch into involuntary bankruptcy as its finances went into disarray. By 2008, the Pay by Touch machines were removed from Jewel stores. Troy Bernard, Discover's global head of emerging payments, said his company is working on several payment technologies that could come to fruition both in the short- and long-term. "Biometrics falls into long-term solutions," Bernard said, acknowledging potential concerns about both biometrics as well as the barrier to entry of making someone register for something. |
