Flames of War

I had spend an hour watching the latest film produced by ISIS; Flames of War; which is banned from public airing.. Thanks to Clarion Project - Addressing Islamic Extremism for sharing..

 I can concluded three issues for the thoughtful to consider:

1. Martyrdom is unprecedented weapon in modern warfare, apart from Japanese and Vietnamese heroic acts, which uneasy to deter but Nukes or Withdraw..

2. Media contents have to change to confront these enchanted enthusiastic guys, by deploying new Arabic anchors, facilitating new Muslim task-forces, and play the same but reversed tunes..

3. Despite how problematic the development of a united political will; yet it is conceivable by reduction of political agendas; then the Arabic Muslim civic societies will provide truly effective actions..

Mariam at the Vatican..

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Sudan’s Meriam Ibrahim, holding her daughter Maya in her arms, is shown meeting Pope Francis in Rome on 24 July 2014

The Italian Deputy Minister for Foreign Relations had led the secret negotiations with Sudanese government to allow for Mariam and her kids to leave Sudan.. Certainly, without Sudanese travel documents or papers; she had lift Sudan on board of an Italian Government plane.. The same day, she was received and blessed by Pop Francis at the Vatican..
Her US citizen and wheel-chaired husband Dani; was never the focus of news or photographs..!
Sudanese government was not available for comments, yet it was clearly a part of trade off between Sudan and European Union.. Al-Basheer Regimes seeks any scores at any prices..

I kept wondering on the momentum Marian represents; to deploy senior Italian official to accompany her, on a 30K $ voyage, who was immediately scheduled upon arrival to meet the Pop..

Many freedom fighters and victims of oppression had no chance to be recognized at such a high level celebrations..

There is a strong bad smell in the air..!!

The world’s worst countries for workers

A global leaderboard in the race to protect workers’ rights was released today at the ITUC World Congress in Berlin. The ITUC Global Rights Index ranks 139 countries against 97 internationally recognised indicators to assess where workers’ rights are best protected, in law and in practice.

“Countries such as Denmark and Uruguay led the way through their strong labour laws, but perhaps surprisingly, the likes of Greece, the United States and Hong Kong, lagged behind,” said ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow. “A country’s level of development proved to be a poor indicator of whether it respected basic rights to bargain collectively, strike for decent conditions, or simply join a union at all.”

The International Trade Union Confederation has been collecting data on the abuse of trade union rights around the world for the past 30 years. Now for the first time the ITUC Global Rights Index presents carefully verified information from the last 12 months in an easy-to-use format so that every government and business can see how their laws and supply chains stack up.
Cambodia’s labour law fails to cover many civil servants, there are undue restrictions on the right to elect union representatives, and in 2013 the government responded with lethal force to demonstrators seeking a decent wage and working conditions. This resulted in Cambodia receiving a score of 5 in the Rights Index – the worst possible rating other than for those countries where the rule of law has completely broken down.

Oscar Pistorius

Fortunately; South Africa does not use a jury system, therefore the Honorable Masipa has a horrific task to determine the verdict..

However, the more I watch his trial, the more convinced that he lies a lot..
His defense team are smart enough to play the good cords.. Many claims of his are simply ridiculous..

The experienced judge will look into the fine details to connect the dots and fill the gaps between reasonable doubts and evident intentions..

It seems to me he had been through one of these moods when a person temporarily loses senses.. Driven by complex of personal motives and constraints; had developed the sincere denial attitude; which would blackout realities and replace with a wishful yet imaginary Virtuality..

I have little doubt that he will end up confirmed guilty, and if so; will end up suicidal at his prison..

Regretfully, as how he was inspirational to the 7% special-needs-persons worldwide, he had unintentionally shut the doors for psychological coherence and defuse with others.. This story will change the spectrum of this group of people, reviving old tales of their hidden aspirational incompetence, despite the big funds spent on friendly facilities everywhere.. I know that such facilities cost almost 0.5% of real estate and urban investments..

The sole lesson is about how media should relax a bit in promoting achievements and persons attached.. Yet, it sounds impossible as media lives on the atrocities rather than the festivals..!!

Slavery 2013

We think of slavery as a practice of the past, an image from Roman colonies or 18th-century American plantations, but the practice of enslaving human beings as property still exists. There are 29.8 million people living as slaves right now, according to a comprehensive new report  issued by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation.

This is not some softened, by-modern-standards definition of slavery. These 30 million people are living as forced laborers, forced prostitutes, child soldiers, child brides in forced marriages and, in all ways that matter, as pieces of property, chattel in the servitude of absolute ownership. Walk Free investigated 162 countries and found slaves in every single one. But the practice is far worse in some countries than others.

The country where you are most likely to be enslaved is Mauritania. Although this vast West African nation has tried three times to outlaw slavery within its borders, it remains so common that it is nearly normal. The report estimates that four percent of Mauritania is enslaved – one out of every 25 people. (The aid group SOS Slavery, using a broader definition of slavery, estimated several years ago that as  many as 20 percent of Mauritanians might be enslaved.)

The map at the top of this page shows almost every country in the world colored according to the share of its population that is enslaved. The rate of slavery is also alarmingly high in Haiti, in Pakistan and in India, the world's second-most populous country. In all three, more than 1 percent of the population is estimated to live in slavery.

A few trends are immediately clear from the map up top. First, rich, developed countries tend to have by far the lowest rates of slavery. The report says that effective government policies, rule of law, political stability and development levels all make slavery less likely. The vulnerable are less vulnerable, those who would exploit them face higher penalties and greater risk of getting caught. A war, natural disaster or state collapse is less likely to force helpless children or adults into bondage. Another crucial factor in preventing slavery is discrimination. When society treats women, ethnic groups or religious minorities as less valuable or less worthy of protection, they are more likely to become slaves.

Then there are the worst-affected regions. Sub-Saharan Africa is a swath of red, with many countries having roughly 0.7 percent of the population enslaved -- or one in every 140 people. The legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism are still playing out in the region; ethnic divisions and systems of economic exploitation engineered there during the colonial era are still, to some extent, in place. Slavery is also driven by extreme poverty, high levels of corruption and toleration of child "marriages" of young girls to adult men who pay their parents a "dowry."

Two other bright red regions are Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Both are blighted particularly by sex trafficking, a practice that bears little resemblance to popular Western conceptions of prostitution. Women and men are coerced into participating, often starting at a very young age, and are completely reliant on their traffickers for not just their daily survival but basic life choices; they have no say in where they go or what they do and are physically prevented from leaving. International sex traffickers have long targeted these two regions, whose women and men are prized for their skin tones and appearance by Western patrons.

Here, to give you a different perspective of slavery's scope, is a map of the world showing the number of slaves living in each country:
Yes, this map can be a little misleading. The United States, per capita, has a very low rate of slavery: just 0.02 percent, or one in every 5,000 people. But that adds up to a lot: an estimated 60,000 slaves, right here in America.

If your goal is to have as few slaves as possible -- Walk Free says it is working to eradicate the practice in one generation's time -- then this map is very important, because it shows you which countries have the most slaves and thus which governments can do the most to reduce the global number of slaves. In that sense, the United States could stand to do a lot.

You don't have to go far to see slavery in America. Here in Washington, D.C., you can sometimes spot them on certain streets, late at night. Not all sex workers or "prostitutes" are slaves, of course; plenty have chosen the work voluntarily and can leave it freely. But, as the 2007 documentary "Very Young Girls" demonstrated, many are coerced into participating at a young age and gradually shifted into a life that very much resembles slavery.

A less visible but still prevalent form of slavery in America involves illegal migrant laborers who are lured with the promise of work and then manipulated into forced servitude, living without wages or freedom of movement, under constant threat of being turned over to the police should they let up in their work. Walk Free cites "a highly developed criminal economy that preys on economic migrants, trafficking and enslaving them." That economy stretches from the migrants' home countries right to the United States.

The country that is most marked by slavery, though, is clearly India. There are an estimated 14 million slaves in India – it would be as if the entire population of Pennsylvania were forced into slavery. The country suffers deeply from all major forms of slavery, according to the report. Forced labor is common, due in part to a system of hereditary debt bondage; many Indian children are born "owing" sums they could never possibly pay to masters who control them as chattel their entire lives. Others fall into forced labor when they move to a different region looking for work, and turn to an unlicensed "broker" who promises work but delivers them into servitude. The country's caste system and widespread discrimination abet social norms that make it easier to turn a blind eye to the problem. Women and girls from underprivileged classes are particularly vulnerable to sexual slavery, whether under the guise of "child marriages" or not, although men and boys often fall victim as well.

One of the world's most vulnerable populations for enslavement is Haitian children. Haiti has the world's second-highest rate of slavery -- 2.1 percent, or about one in every 48 people, many of them underage. There's even a word for it: "restaveks," from the colonial French for "reste avec" or "stay with." Traditionally, the word refers to a poor family sending their child to live with and work for a wealthier family. Often it is innocuous. But it can also encompass parents who feel they have no choice, typically because they have no income other than what they derive from selling their children into forced labor conditions that strongly resemble slavery. About one in 10 Haitian children are believed to participate. Those who run away, according to the report, are often "trafficked into forced begging and commercial sexual exploitation."

What's perhaps most amazing about the prevalence of slavery around the world is how similar it can look across very different societies. The risk factors might change from one place to another, the causes varying widely, but the lives of the enslaved rarely do.

Max Fisher is the Post's foreign affairs blogger. He has a master's degree in security studies from Johns Hopkins University. Sign up for his daily newsletter here. Also, follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/?tid=sm_fb

 

Charles Taylor and the Paradox of The Hague

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was transferred to prison in the United Kingdom on Tuesday to serve out the remainder of his 50-year sentence. Taylor had been in custody at The Hague in the Netherlands since his 2012 conviction at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Sierra Leone's civil war -- itself an extension of Liberia's civil war -- during his rule from 1997 to 2003. While the transfer symbolically concludes a decadelong effort to bring Taylor to justice, the unintended consequences of the prosecution have been felt far and wide and are likely to complicate attempts to resolve violent conflicts in the future.

 

The desire for justice is understandable. Both West African conflicts were archetypically Hobbesian in nature. Diamonds mined from shallow alluvial deposits financed the just-as-easy acquisition of small arms, fueling the lusty imperial ambitions of Taylor and his allies (including former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi). Life in wartime Liberia was nasty, brutal and short, and images of limbless war survivors and of child soldiers mutilating their elders abound. Since Taylor fell, Liberia has largely been governed adequately by current President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and an array of peacekeeping forces and modest foreign investment have helped stabilize the country and allow normalcy to return.

 

However, the International Criminal Court played no part in resolving the Liberian and Sierra Leonean wars (Taylor was pushed out of power by rival militias attacking from Guinea and Sierra Leone and, ultimately, by a West African peacekeeping mission), and the significance gained by the court in recent years has largely been inadvertent and, at times, counterproductive. Indeed, in the corridors of power in Africa and beyond, the court is now seen at the very least as a political liability -- and even an obstacle to conflict resolution.

The prosecution of Taylor created incentives for leaders in conflict zones elsewhere to refuse mediated resolutions. In 2003, Taylor agreed to resign from the presidency in exchange for safe exile in Nigeria. But the deal was reneged upon, and Taylor was arrested in 2006. Fearing a fate similar to Taylor's, beleaguered leaders have become more likely to cling to power until forcibly removed.

 

The International Criminal Court has also effectively lowered the bar in its selection of cases to prosecute. Instead of attempting to prosecute leaders currently orchestrating mass conflicts, the court has focused more on losers of political conflicts -- and only long after their alleged crimes occurred. Furthermore, African leaders believe that the court focuses an inordinate amount of attention on them. To its detractors, the court has lost legitimacy by choosing to prosecute relatively defenseless officials who were involved in relatively minor events.

 

As a result, leaders from Kenya -- which is currently calling for an Africa-wide withdrawal from the court -- to Sudan to Zimbabwe have appeared more determined to hold onto office (and the executive immunity privileges it affords), at least in part to prevent what happened to Taylor from happening to them. For example, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government will not yield to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and risk exposing itself to a prosecution for uncertain crimes by the International Criminal Court.

 

In Libya, Gadhafi likely kept fighting until he was killed in part because he lacked a secure alternative. Ousted Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, meanwhile, argues that he was only defending his legitimate government against an armed rebellion during Ivory Coast's civil war in the 2000s and through to national elections in 2010. Regardless, Gbagbo would not have ended up at The Hague if French-backed Ivorian rebels had not captured him.

 

Most concerning today is the conflict in Syria, where President Bashar al Assad has refused all exile offers and instead continues to fight, knowing a safe exit immune from prosecution cannot be guaranteed. For this reason, the International Criminal Court, like many international organizations, will remain part of the institutional fabric of the international community but its relevance and ability to contribute to conflict resolutions may continue to wane.

http://www.stratfor.com/sample/geopolitical-diary/charles-taylor-and-paradox-hague

Transgender Challenges..

 

 

Tangible challenge for many Muslim Scholars..!!

 

A former trained soldier has swapped her Territorial Army beret for a veil and become Britain's first transgender Muslim woman. Lucy Vallender used to be called Laurens and says she is finally 'true to herself' after a sex change three years ago.
The 28-year-old is now married to a Muslim man she met on an online dating site, but he did not know she was once a man when they wed.
She now wears a full veil outside her Swindon home to show the world she is married.
The former labourer said 'she used to love firing guns' and claims she drank regularly with the other squaddies as a TA private, but Lucy knew at 14 she wanted to become a woman.
'I tried to do macho things you know to stop how I was thinking, but it didn't work because I was trying to be someone I wasn't,' she said.
'I felt differently to others - I was attracted to men.
'But I suppressed my feelings and tried to live like most people my age.
'I'd go out clubbing with friends and drink a lot of alcohol.
'I had girlfriends too, but it would never get physical and always fizzled out after a couple of months.
'Joining the TA was my final attempt at trying to fit in to that kind of life but I couldn't handle it anymore and left after about a year.
'I felt like I was in the wrong body. To carry on living as a male was living a lie.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2411152/Lucy-Vallender-Former-male-TA-soldier-UKs-transgender-Muslim-woman-MARRIED.html#ixzz2dwROzkmZ




 

Public Record Law

Something we don't understand at our 3rd world..!!Digital mapping files are public records,

State Supreme Court rules

Digital mapping files, or geographic information systems, must be released under public records law, California Supreme Court rules.

July 08, 2013

By Tony Barboza

 

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that digital mapping files known as geographic information systems must be released under the state's public records law.

The decision could make it easier for media organizations, advocacy groups and others to obtain government GIS databases, rich collections of data that can be used to display and analyze multiple layers of geographical information.

 

The case stems from a 2007 letter the Sierra Club wrote to the Orange County assessor requesting copies of its OC Landbase, a GIS database of information on more than 640,000 land parcels. The group planned to use the database, which includes parcel boundaries, numbers and addresses, for environmental mapping projects, such as identifying land suitable for conservation.

 

The county argued that GIS files were "computer software" and exempt from disclosure under the state Public Records Act. County officials told the Sierra Club they would provide the data in GIS format if the organization paid a licensing fee and agreed to restrictions on its disclosure and distribution.

The county initially asked for $375,000 for the database, the Sierra Club told The Times, so the group filed suit.

 

Orange County won in trial and on appeal. A variety of open-government groups and media organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, filed a "friend of the court" brief before the state Supreme Court in support of the Sierra Club.

The high court ruled that such databases are public records and must be provided at the actual cost of duplication.

 

Forty-seven of California's 58 counties already provide GIS parcel maps as public records for a nominal fee, said Dean Wallraff, an attorney for the Sierra Club. Los Angeles County charged the group less than $10 for a disk containing the files, he said. Monday's court ruling should compel Orange County to do the same.

"We're moving into an era where most public records are being kept electronically, and the law needs to keep up," Wallraff said.

 

Orange County spokesman Howard Sutter said the county is reviewing the decision.

Terry Francke, general counsel for the open-government group Californians Aware, said the court's decision has major significance for the increasing number of people requesting detailed government planning and mapping databases.

 

tony.barboza@latimes.com

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/08/local/la-me-adv-map-ruling-20130709

Voluntary Slavery

 

A cyber friend had thankfully entrusted me with a query on Voluntary Slavery; or "An adult woman offers herself to be a free proprietary of a Muslim man".. Of course; I’m not a formally authorized Sheikh or a Cleric, but a literate Muslim person; with an access to the "Linguistics" of Islamic rituals, doctrine and culture, which inevitably were in Arabic..

 

This controversial and exotic issue is only "linguistic rather than doctrine".. yet, got the publicity by Muslim Radicals and Salafiests, who are famous in triggering controversial (mostly outdated) issues..

 

Certainly, logically and practically; there is nothing called Voluntary Slavery.. No mature person would voluntarily offer herself or himself to be propriety of another person, male or female.. unless forced or bullied by public or hidden motives.. This logic of "Freedom and Free-will" was the foundation of urbanity and civilization.. A pillar within the Intellectual Estate, for all Mankind.. Typically Islam had advocated for the Free-will; even to believe or not..!

 

Muslim Matrimony is always public, someway or another.. Therefore, when a woman offers herself to be propriety of a man; it is an expression of love, respect or need.. Actually; she either aggressively persuading him to marry her.. or shamelessly declaring been irrevocably and irreversibly his life-time-maid (or a voluntary slave in this context).. A man (embarrassedly or uncontrolledly) may accept any of these two scenarios..


The 2nd seems irrational or unpractical in today’s world, yet stills a probability; despite how is practiced in the remote Muslim villages of Sub-Continent and Sub-Sahara..

Therefore, it is all about the 1st scenario, which in our Today’s Muslim World; would mean her choice to marry him "without a guardian’s consent or a dowry".. Yet; witnesses would be there.. This is not a propriety nor a voluntary slavery.. It is just another form of marriage..

If couple of Muslim met somewhere at non-Muslim community, yet; decided to swiftly marry: How would they proceed..?
Certainly; without Muslim Guardian, Dowry or Witnesses..  

 

In the history of Islam; “Proprietary of Others”; it had never been advised or encouraged; unless to relief a believer-slave from the suppression imposed by a non-Muslim owner.. Islam had made the emancipation of slaves as one of the tools for penance or sentence in most of judiciary processing.. Medieval Islam had followed the same till the formal termination of slavery in the modern times..

Proprietary or (ملك اليمين) had been mentioned in 10 Ayahs:

Surah Al-Mo’mienon 23/7: Definition of lawful believers, who only mate their wives “or” a proprietary

Surah Al-Ma’riej 70/31: Ditto/Same        

Surah Al-Ahzaab 33/50: Specified role for the Prophet PBUH      

Surah Al-Ahzaab 33/52: Ditto/Same

Surah Al-Niesaa 4/24: Role on women's eligibility for marriage subject to Dowry; which is only for the "free"              

Surah Al-Niesaa 4/3: Role to marry more than one women “or” a proprietary     

Surah Al-Niesaa 4/36: Definition of whom charity should be given            

Surah Al-Noor 24/31: Definition of who may observe Muslim women without their "full" modesty

Surah Al-Noor 24/58: Definition of who may enter the parents’ room during their rest times  

Surah Al-Ahzaab 33/55: Definition of who may observe Muslim women without their "Full" modesty 

 

 

Accordingly, only 3 are addressing mating the proprietary, subject to a clear “OR” condition.. Meaning, "Not to Mate a Proprietary" if the person has the means to marry a free Muslim woman.. Adding to it, to mate a proprietary; she should be given a Dowry, which is only eligible to a free woman..


Therefore, if a Muslim Man wants; or finds no other way but to marry a proprietary; he should "Emancipate" her 1st, gives a Dowry and then "Announce" her as a legitimate wife..

It is notable that the process to emancipate was "Not" conditioned to be public, unless the owner prefers.. The dowry can only be an iron ring.. Therefore; it Is most likely that many female slaves had been set free, timely with mating.. Yet, Scholars are still debating the doctrine of witnesses, without annulling such practice..


The Islamic Code had never included "Mating a Salve or a Proprietary"; as both definitions are economic rather than sociocultural.. Both are temporary.. Therefore, they denounce the eligibility for marriage (which legitimizes mating) as surrounding circumstance may change, shift or invalid..
 

 

The confusion about this matter is historical, when early Muslim men had mated their female slaves or proprietaries.. Then became a custom among wealthy Muslims and Statesmen, who created the brand "Hareem"..


There was "untold code" within such questioned practice: Owner-men had never sold away the female salves they had mated.. Nor set free the voluntary slaves they had.. It was a form of "irrevocable" marriage..


Eventually, as how such a woman will be a wife of yours; you can’t marry more than four of her-alike at any given time.. Simply; the practices among Ottoman, Mamluk or Mogul monarchs were deviations from the merit of Islam.. Hareem was the most wrong term in Muslim History, and the most destructive one as well.. 

1970th had witnessed the formal termination of slavery in Muslim communities; worldwide apart from Mauritania and Mali.. Some few remote communities still in practice; which form socioeconomic challenges..

 

Today; there is no way to take a woman into proprietary, even in these classic interpretations of war, feudal or outdated social system.. What is carried out for practice in South Asia or African Sahara is not Islamic but revival of ancient social systems.. Therefore, these practices are NOT Islamic..!

 

Regretfully, many scholars and historian defend those odd practices in their aim to defend Islam..  yet, Islam is only honored, defended and advocated by true, integral and clear admission of Right and Wrong..!

A "Women's Conference" in Saudi..

 

A picture of a conference in Saudi Arabia on 'women in society' – attended by men only – has gone viral. As absurd as it sounds, it reminds Louisa Peacock of a typical UK business conference.  

No room for girls at a 'women's conference' in Saudi: Is this ridiculous spectacle real?

By Louisa Peacock

27 Jun 2013

It's a good gag by whoever's come up with it – a room full of Saudi Arabian men supposedly coming together to talk about 'women in society'. Without any women present.

No wonder the picture's currently doing the rounds on Twitter – both men and women are laughing at the absurdity and hypocrisy of it.

And yet, is it really that absurd? We don't actually know if the photo is real. But this is a country where women are not allowed to drive, women cannot vote or be elected to high political positions – oh, and stoning them to death if they try to leave their husbands is still OK.

It's not too hard to make the leap, then, that Saudi Arabia would seriously, actually, run a conference about 'what to do with all these women' – those who are rising up, who are starting to disobey the 'norms'. Post the Arab spring and this 'new world' of politics – it's possible women may want a change in culture in the Middle East. And the men don't like it.

Regardless, even if it is just a picture of any old get together – to talk about business or politics – it still screams alarm bells at you: the fact that no women are present is telling.

Perhaps it was, literally, a man's only event and the originator of this gag is just making a point.
Come to think of it, his or her point is well heard. I have been to many a business conference in the UK over the years that may as well be men-only: a sea of grey suits and balding, middle aged men doesn't help to inspire the new generation, especially women, into industry.

If it seems absurd that Saudi Arabia would host a male-only event excluding women, perhaps it is just an exaggerated version of what goes on in the Western world?
But before the UK Government is tempted to launch an Inquiry into said problem, let's just enjoy this photo for what I believe it is: a good gag.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10145736/No-room-for-girls-at-a-womens-conference-in-Saudi-Is-this-ridiculous-spectacle-real.html

The Falling Buidlings in Egypt

This phenomenon is great shameful attribute to modern Egypt..

It interprets greed, criminology and chaotic public culture..

 

Despite cries and calls; Egyptian Authorities are paralyzed to deliver proper response to mitigate, prevent or criminalize the whole practice..

 

It involves Businessmen, Engineers, Contractors, Tradesmen and Government Officials as well.. It is unprecedented worldwide..

As usual, it will eventually copy cat among all Arabic Speakers..!!!!

 

 

الكَحُول هو فيلم وثائقي استقصائي من إنتاج قناة الجزيرة مباشر مصر ، يبحث في أسباب ظاهرة سقوط المباني السكنية في مدن مصر وخصوصا الإسكندرية ، حيث تسببت في مقتل وتشريد المئات من الأبرياء ، بعد أن تجاوز عدد العقارات المخالفة لشروط البناء الآلاف ، بُني معظمها بعد الثورة

وفيلم "الكَحُول" يغوص في خبايا عالم بعيد عن الأضواء، ويكشف أسرارا تعرض لأول مرة على الشاشة عن أناس امتهنوا إعداد الوثائق الرسمية والموافقات العقارية بأسماء وهمية ، مما يجعل أغلب التحقيقات الجنائية حول أسباب الحادثة تقيّد في النهاية ضد مجهول

و"الكَحُول" الاسم الذي يطلق محليا على ذلك "المجهول" الذي يتولى كبر الجرم ، دون أن يكون له يد في الجريمة. بسطاء دفعتهم الحاجة والعوز للوقوع في شرك عصابات متخصصة في استغلال الأبرياء

Alcohol is a documentary survey of the production of Al Jazeera Live Egypt, looking into the causes of the phenomenon of the fall of the residential buildings in the cities of Egypt, particularly Alexandria, which caused the deaths and the displacement of hundreds of innocent people, having exceeded the number of real estate in violation of the terms of construction of thousands, built mostly after the revolution.

The film "alcohol" dive into the mysteries of the world is far from the spotlight, and reveals secrets exposed for the first time on the screen people specialized in the preparation of official documents and approvals real estate and fictitious names, which makes most of the criminal investigations on the causes of the incident recorded in the end against the unknown.

And "alcohol" the name given locally on the "Anonymous" who is larger offense, without having a hand in the crime. Simple prompted them need and want to fall into the trap of gangs specializing in the exploitation of innocent

Privacy or Protection..?

GCHQ taps Fiber-Optic Cables for Secret Access to World's Communications

 

 

Guardian Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal

• How the surveillance works
• GCHQ: building an intelligence superpower

 

Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).

The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.

One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months.

GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.

This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.

'The UK has a huge dog in this fight'

The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his attempt to expose what he has called "the largest programme of suspicionless surveillance in human history".

"It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden told the Guardian. "They [GCHQ] are worse than the US."

However, on Friday a source with knowledge of intelligence argued that the data was collected legally under a system of safeguards, and had provided material that had led to significant breakthroughs in detecting and preventing serious crime.

Britain's technical capacity to tap into the cables that carry the world's communications – referred to in the documents as special source exploitation – has made GCHQ an intelligence superpower.

By 2010, two years after the project was first trialled, it was able to boast it had the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

UK officials could also claim GCHQ "produces larger amounts of metadata than NSA". (Metadata describes basic information on who has been contacting whom, without detailing the content.)

'Light oversight'

By May last year 300 analysts from GCHQ, and 250 from the NSA, had been assigned to sift through the flood of data.

The Americans were given guidelines for its use, but were told in legal briefings by GCHQ lawyers: "We have a light oversight regime compared with the US".

When it came to judging the necessity and proportionality of what they were allowed to look for, would-be American users were told it was "your call".

The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.

The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m "telephone events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.

Each of the cables carries data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second, so the tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21 petabytes a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours.

And the scale of the programme is constantly increasing as more cables are tapped and GCHQ data storage facilities in the UK and abroad are expanded with the aim of processing terabits (thousands of gigabits) of data at a time.

For the 2 billion users of the world wide web, Tempora represents a window on to their everyday lives, sucking up every form of communication from the fibre-optic cables that ring the world.

The NSA has meanwhile opened a second window, in the form of the Prism operation, revealed earlier this month by the Guardian, from which it secured access to the internal systems of global companies that service the internet.

'Intercept partners'

The GCHQ mass tapping operation has been built up over five years by attaching intercept probes to transatlantic fibre-optic cables where they land on British shores carrying data to western Europe from telephone exchanges and internet servers in north America.

This was done under secret agreements with commercial companies, described in one document as "intercept partners".

The papers seen by the Guardian suggest some companies have been paid for the cost of their co-operation and GCHQ went to great lengths to keep their names secret. They were assigned "sensitive relationship teams" and staff were urged in one internal guidance paper to disguise the origin of "special source" material in their reports for fear that the role of the companies as intercept partners would cause "high-level political fallout".

The source with knowledge of intelligence said on Friday the companies were obliged to co-operate in this operation. They are forbidden from revealing the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables.

"There's an overarching condition of the licensing of the companies that they have to co-operate in this. Should they decline, we can compel them to do so. They have no choice."

The source said that although GCHQ was collecting a "vast haystack of data" what they were looking for was "needles".

"Essentially, we have a process that allows us to select a small number of needles in a haystack. We are not looking at every piece of straw. There are certain triggers that allow you to discard or not examine a lot of data so you are just looking at needles. If you had the impression we are reading millions of emails, we are not. There is no intention in this whole programme to use it for looking at UK domestic traffic – British people talking to each other," the source said.

He explained that when such "needles" were found a log was made and the interception commissioner could see that log.

"The criteria are security, terror, organised crime. And economic well-being. There's an auditing process to go back through the logs and see if it was justified or not. The vast majority of the data is discarded without being looked at… we simply don't have the resources."

New technology, old law

However, the legitimacy of the operation is in doubt. According to GCHQ's legal advice, it was given the go-ahead by applying old law to new technology. The 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) requires the tapping of defined targets to be authorised by a warrant signed by the home secretary or foreign secretary.

However, an obscure clause allows the foreign secretary to sign a certificate for the interception of broad categories of material, as long as one end of the monitored communications is abroad. But the nature of modern fibre-optic communications means that a proportion of internal UK traffic is relayed abroad and then returns through the cables.

Parliament passed the Ripa law to allow GCHQ to trawl for information, but it did so 13 years ago with no inkling of the scale on which GCHQ would attempt to exploit the certificates, enabling it to gather and process data regardless of whether it belongs to identified targets.

The categories of material have included fraud, drug trafficking and terrorism, but the criteria at any one time are secret and are not subject to any public debate. GCHQ's compliance with the certificates is audited by the agency itself, but the results of those audits are also secret.

An indication of how broad the dragnet can be was laid bare in advice from GCHQ's lawyers, who said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted because "this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage".

There is an investigatory powers tribunal to look into complaints that the data gathered by GCHQ has been improperly used, but the agency reassured NSA analysts in the early days of the programme, in 2009: "So far they have always found in our favour".

Historically, the spy agencies have intercepted international communications by focusing on microwave towers and satellites. The NSA's intercept station at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire played a leading role in this. One internal document quotes the head of the NSA, Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, on a visit to Menwith Hill in June 2008, asking: "Why can't we collect all the signals all the time? Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith."

By then, however, satellite interception accounted for only a small part of the network traffic. Most of it now travels on fibre-optic cables, and the UK's position on the western edge of Europe gave it natural access to cables emerging from the Atlantic.

Protecting the Olympics

The data collected provides a powerful tool in the hands of the security agencies, enabling them to sift for evidence of serious crime. According to the source, it has allowed them to discover new techniques used by terrorists to avoid security checks and to identify terrorists planning atrocities. It has also been used against child exploitation networks and in the field of cyberdefence.

It was claimed on Friday that it directly led to the arrest and imprisonment of a cell in the Midlands who were planning co-ordinated attacks; to the arrest of five Luton-based individuals preparing acts of terror, and to the arrest of three London-based people planning attacks prior to the Olympics.

As the probes began to generate data, GCHQ set up a three-year trial at the GCHQ station in Bude, Cornwall. By the summer of 2011, GCHQ had probes attached to more than 200 internet links, each carrying data at 10 gigabits a second. "This is a massive amount of data!" as one internal slideshow put it. That summer, it brought NSA analysts into the Bude trials. In the autumn of 2011, it launched Tempora as a mainstream programme, shared with the Americans.

The intercept probes on the transatlantic cables gave GCHQ access to its special source exploitation. Tempora allowed the agency to set up internet buffers so it could not simply watch the data live but also store it – for three days in the case of content and 30 days for metadata.

"Internet buffers represent an exciting opportunity to get direct access to enormous amounts of GCHQ's special source data," one document explained.

The processing centres apply a series of sophisticated computer programmes in order to filter the material through what is known as MVR – massive volume reduction. The first filter immediately rejects high-volume, low-value traffic, such as peer-to-peer downloads, which reduces the volume by about 30%. Others pull out packets of information relating to "selectors" – search terms including subjects, phone numbers and email addresses of interest. Some 40,000 of these were chosen by GCHQ and 31,000 by the NSA. Most of the information extracted is "content", such as recordings of phone calls or the substance of email messages. The rest is metadata.

The GCHQ documents that the Guardian has seen illustrate a constant effort to build up storage capacity at the stations at Cheltenham, Bude and at one overseas location, as well a search for ways to maintain the agency's comparative advantage as the world's leading communications companies increasingly route their cables through Asia to cut costs. Meanwhile, technical work is ongoing to expand GCHQ's capacity to ingest data from new super cables carrying data at 100 gigabits a second. As one training slide told new users: "You are in an enviable position – have fun and make the most of it."