Sunday, April 8, 2012

Bahrain: the silenced revolt


Dalia González Delgado
WHO has heard anything concrete about the protests in Bahrain? Very few people, no doubt. Not because it is a small country, but because in the contemporary world, what doesn’t appear in the media virtually does not exist. The same media which is exacerbating what is occurring in Syria is silent when it comes to passing judgment on allies of the United States. In this case, the ally being the monarchy of King Al Khalifa.
If there is any reference to the conflict in Bahrain in the media, it is reduced to a confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis. Although 70% of the country’s inhabitants are Shiite and the other 30% Sunni – the branch of Islam professed by the ruling dynasty – the essence of the protest in this country is neither sectarian nor religious.
For more than 12 months, the demonstrations in Bahrain have focused on demands linked to work, fighting poverty and social improvements. The perspective is a secular and peaceful one. "Not Shiites or Sunnis, but Bahrainis," is the central slogan.
The reaction of authorities has been one of brutal repression. February 14, 2011 will be remembered as the day on which Saudi Arabian troops invaded Bahrain via an elevated highway linking the two countries, to "help" crush the uprising.
Police have fired live rounds at demonstrators, and have used clubs and teargas. According to witnesses, cruelty has reached the point that wounded protestors have been unable to get to hospitals for treatment.
Due to the evident lack of information, it is difficult to obtain any clear idea of what is taking place.
Why has this case not been discussed in the UN Security Council? Why has the Arab League not sent in a team of observers? Why is there no demand for Al Kalifa to step down, as is the case with Bashar al-Assad of Syria?
Analyst Pepe Escobar states that there was a tacit agreement between the House of Saud and the White House, along the lines of, "You invade Bahrain, we’ll give you an Arab resolution which will allow you to go to the UN and then launch the NATO humanitarian bombing of Libya."
Two UN diplomatic sources confirmed this to Asia Times Online, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the go-ahead for the Saudi invasion of Bahrain.
This is another clear example of the U.S. policy of double standards, or ‘do what I say and not what I do.’
Maryam al-Khawaja, an activist and director of the Bahrain Human Rights Center’s Foreign Relations Department, has attacked Western governments for selling arms to Bahrain.
During the last 10 years, U.S. sales of military equipment to the country have risen to $1.4 billion. In addition, Bahrain is in receipt of an International Military and Education Training program (IMET) and signed an agreement for $53 million in arms sales.
Why is such a small island so important to Washington?
In 2002, the U.S. giant designated the kingdom "a very important non-NATO ally." At the same time, in March of 2008, the Al Khalifa regime became the first Arab country to conduct joint naval maneuvers with the United States. It is not coincidental that the U.S. 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain and will be the hub of any future U.S. military action in the Gulf. It has already given logistical support as a base in the Iraqi wars, and to missions in Afghanistan.
Simply stated, the United States cannot afford to lose Bahrain.
 


U.S Army to create super-intelligent artificial human beings.

By Anton Evseev
 Representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense announced the launch of a project to develop computer systems with elements of artificial intelligence. But we are not talking about creating a "computer mind". The military are no longer satisfied with the speed of analysis and data quality of modern computers. No one is going to produce "terminators" at this point.
It seems that the Pentagon is seriously interested in artificial intelligence. It has nothing to do with insufficient intelligence of the employees of the U.S. Defense Department (all idle speculations about the low intellectual level of the Americans are ungrounded). The reason is quite simple - the computer systems of the U.S. military authorities cannot cope with the array of data that comes in every minute.
The U.S. military has long complained that their analysts are simply drowning in the ocean of data from drones, satellites, the Internet, exploration, etc. As a result, this affects the speed of decision making. Often such delays are due to the fact that experts cannot distinguish the most important from a large flow of information.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the collected data is often imperfect, incomplete and heterogeneous. For example, specialists have to deal with fragments of documents incorrectly decrypted by satellite images, photographs that were taken at a time when high quality was simply impossible, and so on. All this data must not only be understood, but also collected into a database used by analysts. This is not possible without bringing all to a common standard, which takes lots of time.     
In short, the U.S. military is so tired of all this, that they launched a major project to develop a system to extract the useful experience of large and complex arrays of digital data. The name of the project and partners are kept secret, but it is known that the initial investment will amount to no less than $200 million. Also, there was information that interaction with the project XDATA of the defense research agency DARPA is planned (annual spending of $60 million). Under the project systems for automated mining of large volumes of various unstructured data will be developed.
The U.S. Department of Defense believes that the systems with the elements of artificial intelligence must have the ability to quickly analyze the data. In this regard, the use of the so-called memristors seems promising.
Memristors are chips that combine the functions of memory and analysis. Now in conventional computers the devices that perform these functions are separated and located in different parts of the electrical scheme. Each computer unit is paired only with the neighboring electronic components. This greatly slows down the computing device (and it is inefficient from an energy point of view). As a result, even the most powerful supercomputers cannot, for example, recognize a human face in their database in a second (the human nervous system copes with the task in a fraction of a second).
Recently, scientists from the HRL lab and the University of Michigan have demonstrated the first functional array of memristor-based complementary logic on a metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). Interestingly, this project is also overseen by DARPA. Researchers have developed vertically integrated hybrid electronic circuits that combine new memristors with CMOS chips. This hybrid has already shown impressive results, as memristors can store data with a density of 30 gigabytes per square centimeter. At the moment it is a record in microelectronics.
Perhaps, new computers for the Pentagon will be based on this technology. According to forecasts, the use of memristors will increase the processing speed by a hundred thousand times. In addition, their use opens up the possibility to create complex intelligent machines that can "comprehend" what is happening in real time.
The Military Department also announced that in addition to a new generation of supercomputers that will deal only with the analysis, they plan to develop artificial intelligence systems for various military automated devices, such as drones. These, above all, will be the systems of "visual intelligence". They will be equipped with special data processing algorithms allowing the UAV sensors to ignore irrelevant events, and transfer only important data to its "brain".
Further, the on-board computers with elements of artificial intelligence will be expected to mark the important information with relevant commentary. This will automatically detect and identify the enemy. In the future, the development of devices that will allow robots to not only observe the enemy, but, if necessary, destroy it in automatic mode, is planned.
All of this at first suggests that the U.S. military decided to implement the ideas presented in science fiction films The Terminator. However, this is not the case - the machines developed under the auspices of the Pentagon will not be able to think like humans. At this time this is impossible in principle. They plan to only increase the speed of data analysis and quality of its use. Therefore, fears of a takeover of humans by machines are ungrounded.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Trayvon Martin Deserves Justice!


THOUSANDS of people of have joined marches in cities across the United States protesting racism, discrimination, state laws about the use of force and the lack of justice in the case of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager killed in Sanford, Florida, according to Telesur.
The unarmed 17-year-old Martin was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer on February 26, as the young man was returning from a convenience store.
The case has led to a wave of protest in Black communities across the U.S. and put the spotlight on a controversial law popularly known as "Shoot first" or "Stand your Ground," which gives individuals wide latitude to use deadly force, rather than retreat, if they feel threatened.
The assailant has not been arrested, based on his claim of self-defense. On March 22, almost a month after the crime, Florida Governor Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor and task force to investigate the murder which will address Zimmerman’s allegation.
Reverend Jesse Jackson of Chicago, once a candidate for the Presidency, said "We as a nation have become much too violent… If it’s black on white, it’s jail time. If it’s white on black, it’s revolt time."
While Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, said during a protest in Sanford, "My son did not deserve to die… There is nothing we can say to bring him back, but I’m here to ensure that justice is served so that no more parents have to go through this again."
Students in 31 Miami-Dade schools did not attend classes in a massive protest around the handling of the case, in what the school superintendent described as an unprecedented action, organized through internet social networks and text messages.
The protests have been widely covered in the mass media, including a report on CNN showing images of the Miami Heat basketball team wearing ‘hoodies’ in a clear reference to Trayvon Martin, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt when he was killed.
Participating in the March 22 protest Reverend Al Sharpton stated, "We did not come here on a leave of absence. We came for permanent justice… Arrest Zimmerman, now." This is the central demand of most protests.
Nevertheless Attorney Angela Corey, the special prosecutor who is leading the investigation, stated that given the controversial Florida law, it may be difficult to formally charge the individual who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. (PL)
 

Unfair Distribution of Wealth Respnsible for Riots.




England’s unrest was in part due to the deprivation of hundreds of thousands of the forgotten families who made up the bottom rung of the society, an independent panel into last August unrest has said.


Darra Singh, chairman of the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel, stressed that the government should give everyone a “stake in society,” as '' There are 500,000 forgotten families, bumping along the bottom, unable to change their lives.''

''When people don't feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating - as we saw last August,'' Singh said.

The report also underlined a lack of opportunities for young people, widespread illiteracy, failure of the justice system to rehabilitate offenders, poor parenting, materialism, and distrust of the police as the key factors to the summer unrest that swept all over England.

The panel was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron and his Deputy Nick Clegg after violence erupted in the capital and major cities in England after the police shot a young black man Mark Duggan in Tottenham.

The report concluded, “The key to avoiding future riots is to have communities that work.” suggesting the government should fine the schools, which fail to teach children to read well, support the forgotten families, provide job positions for the young people, and urge the primary and secondary schools to carry out regular evaluations of students’ strength of character.

Labour MP for Hackney, Diane Abbott, said that the communities were under pressure of the police and marginalized by their job prospects, and have been “bombarded with reminders of lives they will, in all likelihood, never have.”

Condemning the coalition government’s harsh austerity measures, Abbott also said, ''In the week after we have seen the top rate of tax for millionaires cut, and the Conservative Party hawking intimate dinners with the Prime Minister for £250,000 [$381,512] a go.”

“I think communities like mine are absolutely sick of being told: 'We're all in this together', when it's absolutely clear that we're not all in it together.''

Difficult Times For Humanity

By Fidel Castro Ruz
THE world is increasingly misinformed amidst the chaos of events unfolding at pace never before imagined.
Those of us who have lived a few more years and are avidly interested in information can testify to the extent of ignorance with which we confront events.
While a growing number of people on the planet lack shelter, bread, water, health, education and employment, the Earth’s wealth is being misspent and wasted on weapons and interminable fratricidal wars, an abominable, ever-expanding global practice – increasingly highly developed.
Our glorious, heroic people, despite the inhumane blockade which has lasted more than half a century, have never lowered their banners; they have struggled and will struggle against the sinister empire. This is to our credit and our modest contribution.
On the other side of our planet, where Seoul, the capital of South Korea, in located, President Barack Obama is attending a Summit addressing nuclear security, to impose policies related to the regulation and use of nuclear weapons.
What is being done there is clearly unfathomable.
Personally, I did not become aware of these realities simply by accident. The experiences I lived through during the 15 years after the triumph of the Revolution – the battle of Girón, the criminal yankee blockade to defeat us through hunger, pirate attacks, the dirty attacks and the nuclear missile crisis of October, 1962 - putting the world on the edge of catastrophic disaster – which led me to the conclusion that Marxists and genuine Christians, many of whom I had known, regardless of their political and religious beliefs, should, and could, struggle for justice and peace among human beings.
This is what I have said, and what I maintain, with no vacillation whatsoever. The reasons I can cite today are absolutely valid and even more important, since all of the events which have taken place over the last 40 years confirm them, today with more justification than ever, since - among Marxists and Christians, Catholic or not; Muslims, Shiite or Sunni; free thinkers, dialectical materialists and thinking people - no one would be in favor of witnessing the premature disappearance of our irreplaceable species, waiting for the complex laws of evolution to produce another one which would resemble ours and be capable of thinking.
With great pleasure I will tomorrow, Wednesday, greet His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI, as I greeted John Paul II, a man who invariably engendered feelings of affection when he came in contact with children and humble citizens among the people.
I therefore decided to request a few minutes within his busy schedule when I heard from our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez that he would appreciate this simple, modest contact.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 27, 2012
8:35 p.m.