Ten Extraordinary Pictures From Mars

Since 2006, the observation satellite Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been charting Mars’s terrain with its HiRISE telescope. In the process, it has produced a series of stunning images that reveal the planet’s beautiful landscape.  

Compiled in the forthcoming book This is Mars by editor Xavier Barral, these images—each spanning a width of 3.7 miles—show the complexities of the legendary planet, from the astonishing depths of its canyons to its ice-covered poles and sweeping black dunes. All photographs courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. 

 

Defrosting the Crests of Inca City. Deemed "Inca City" due to its rectangular shapes, these terrains stretch several kilometers and are located on the southern pole of Mars. In the spring, defrosting creates dark patches that grow as temperatures climb. 

 

 

Traces of Sand Whirlwinds. Powerful sand whirlwinds can cover large portions of the planet, sometimes flowing linearly and sometimes spiraling in less-direct trajectories, as shown here. 

 

 

Crater Having Impaced the Strata of the Plateau Mawrth Vallis. Strata lining this crater are composed of clay minerals formed by the transformation of liquid water from primary minerals. This discovery testifies to Mars’s ancient, humid past.

 

 

Region of the Polar South, Deep Incision in the Polar Sedimentary Strata. The fractures in these sedimentary strata resulted from strong, seasonal thermal variations that can reach up to 100 degrees Celsius.

 

 

Harmakhis Vallis, Part of Which is from a Glacier Flow. Mars’s polar zones are dominated by glaciers. This glacier flows from the lower-left part of the image, with fractures or crevasses forming in perpendicular directions.

 

 

Region of the Polar South, Sedimentary Strata Formed in Spring and at the End of Summer. The dark patches shown here are fractures in the carbonic ice, a result of a process that creates geysers beneath the ice. 

 

 

Field of Dunes in the Proctor Crater. Hundreds of black-sand dunes have accumulated on the floor of this crater. In the winter, ice covers these dunes, creating a stark contrasting tone.

 

 

Polar Region of the North, Barkhanes. The sun lights these barkhanes (sweeping sand dunes), which can move and re-form with strong winds.

 

 

Vallis Granicus. Muddy outflows from a nearby volcano created this labyrinth of canyons. Mars’s active volcanoes are thought to account for the presence of liquid water in a climate that remains very cold.

 

 

Region of the Polar South. Carbonic ice in the polar south has been eroded, leaving small cliffs that resemble arabesques.

 

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114760/nasas-mars-photography

What Really Scares Vladimir Putin the Most

 
 When Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced their deal to rid Syria of chemical weapons, Bashar Al Assad knew exactly what the deal meant—a lifeline—and whom to thank for it. “It’s a victory for Syria achieved thanks to our Russian friends,” said one Syrian minister.
But as the conflict unfolded—as Moscow staunchly denied that Assad had gassed his own subjects; as it moved its war ships into the Mediterranean; and as it finally stepped in to fill the void left by President Obama’s waffling—Washington struggled to decode what, exactly, those Russian friends were after. Was it about keeping a good client of Russian arms manufacturers? Was it about protecting its base in Tartus, the only Russian naval installation in the Mediterranean? Was it nothing more than a desire to stick it to Uncle Sam?
These explanations, however tempting, distort the truth of Russia’s Syrian policy. The base at Tartus is nice to have, sure, but it is a small one: Most of the time, one ship dedicated to repair and support idles there. The arms sales are nice, too, but they’re just a small fraction of total global Russian arms sales. “India buys orders of magnitude more weapons than Syria,” says Georgy Mirsky, a Russian Middle East expert. And if Russia loses Assad, he says, “Don’t worry, we’ll survive.”
More central to Vladimir Putin’s understanding of Syria is his conservatism. Putin is a preternatural standpatter. He is notoriously averse to firing people; he still writes the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. Putin is often said to be a product of the cold war and the Soviet Union, but more than anything, he is a product of their end. The defining moment of his political maturation came in the late ’80s, when the Soviet order, as imperfect and deeply rusted as it had been, gave way to chaos, violence, and poverty, and in which the KGB, the proud elite in which he had served, was humbled and forced to serve as security guards for the new economic elite. It is not for nothing that Putin talks about Russia’s bitter experience with revolutions—a category in which he includes 1991—and about how change is better affected very gradually.
This fear deeply colors Putin’s foreign policy, too. “In general, his worldview is that the world is in such a chaotic, incomprehensible state, that all attempts to influence it with direct action are counterproductive and only bring the opposite of the intended result,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs, who is seen as a good decoder of the Kremlin’s thinking. Furthermore, the trope of U.S. obligation to do this or enforce that is more than galling to Putin, Lukyanov says. It is incomprehensible. “He doesn’t understand where this sense comes from and who saddled the Americans with this burden,” Lukyanov explains. This is not, in other words, a simple cold war hatred of all things American. According to Lukyanov, Putin is deeply skeptical that the United States—or any one else—can fix a country’s internal problems.
A key element of Putin’s conservatism is checking America’s initiatives abroad so as not to set precedents that could come back to haunt Russia. Putin was spooked when a wave of democratizing so-called “color revolutions” swept through three former Soviet states—and the fact that American money was involved further confirmed his suspicion of U.S. aims abroad. In Libya, the Russians received another shock. They had abstained from voting on the United Nations Security Council when the United States and its European allies said they wanted to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. When the intervention resulted in Muammar Qaddafi’s toppling and murder, Putin was reportedly horrified. He is said to have obsessed over Qaddafi’s death and was furious with Dmitry Medvedev, then technically Russia’s president, for not vetoing the use-of-force resolution. (Some among the Moscow chattering classes speculated that with that one abstention Medvedev had forfeited his chance for a second term.) “The only goal in Syria,” says Lukyanov, “is to not allow intervention. ... It sets a precedent. If you allow the Americans to do what they want in Syria, then they can do anything they want in, say, Belarus,” historically Moscow’s most loyal neighbor.
Given Putin’s ideological upbringing and his wounds, he sees the world as a mirror of the one he grew up in: America versus Russia, locked in a long, deep struggle. “He looks for a bipolar world, and if it doesn’t exist, he’ll invent it,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a wizened political consultant who was central to Putin’s first presidential bid and who went on to serve as his adviser. Putin, Pavlovsky says, still hasn’t come to terms with the new geopolitical reality, with its many regional powers, and rather than grapple with it, he has insisted on superimposing the Russia-versus-America reality he knows. Instead of seeing countries on their own terms, “he’s always looking for a patron with whom he can talk,” Pavlovsky says.
But the cold war view is a problematic one for Russia, because it is a struggle it lost. “It’s not policy,” says Pavlovsky. “It’s trauma. America is the trauma of history, and traumas are very serious things.” As a result, Pavlovsky explains, “our relationship to America takes up far too much mental space in the Kremlin.” This is true in Russian culture as well, manifested as an obsession with the United States, both with what it thinks of Russia and with preventing its perceived corrosive influence. (In Moscow, I was a guest on a prime-time radio show dedicated solely to deciphering what the foreign press wrote about Russia. The host was surprised to learn that no such show exists in the United States.)
Putin sees himself as the necessary balance to America’s global power. He likes being the one America has to come to in order to strike deals, and without whom nothing can go forward, in part because it reinforces his view of the world. But by looking to be a counterweight to the United States, Putin’s foreign policy, ironically, becomes prisoner to America’s.
Another problem with this worldview is that it isn’t much of a worldview. It’s what comes together when you sum up the remainders of Putin’s actions, a strange and livid pattern. “It’s not that Putin sits there and thinks about the world,” Pavlovsky explains. “Russia’s actions are often reactive without really thinking it through, without thinking what our goals are, what our place in the world is. We are hell bent on preserving the status quo without even understanding what it is. And when the status quo changes, we get angry and look for the enemy who’s destroying it.” Another problem with this kind of foreign policy is that it lacks staying power. “The status quo always falls apart,” says Pavlovsky. “That’s its defining characteristic.”

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114804/whats-behind-vladimir-putins-syria-policy

Hezbollah Terrorists May Be Out of a Safe Haven

Twenty-one years ago this week, just a few minutes short of 11 p.m. on September 17, 1992, Hezbollah and Iranian operatives opened fire with some 30 gunshots at a Berlin restaurant, brutally ending what had been a quiet dinner. A German court would later determine that Abdolraham Banihashemi and Abbas Rhayel carried out the assassination plot at Iran's behest, killing three members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the largest Iranian-Kurdish opposition to the regime in Tehran. The two gunslingers were assisted by other Hezbollah members, including Kazem Darabi, “the boss of Hezbollah in Berlin.” Darabi and Rhayel were given life sentences, but were released in a 2007 prisoner exchange. Youseff Amin, another co-conspirator, and Mohammad Atris, a document forger who assisted the attackers, were given terms of eleven years and about five years, respectively. Banihashemi, on the other hand, fled the country and made his way back to Iran where he was rewarded with a Mercedes 230 and profitable businesses for his role in the successful operation. Unfortunately, his case is more the rule than the exception.

Truth be told, cases in which Hezbollah operatives have been captured and imprisoned for their crimes are far and few between. Recently, law enforcement and intelligence successes have yielded a series of Hezbollah arrests (Hezbollah operatives are now standing trial in Nigeria and Thailand) and one conviction (Hussam Yacoub was sentenced to four years in prison by a Cypriot court). But even discounting the many Hezbollah operatives never even to be indicted for their crimes, there is a disturbing number of wanted Hezbollah fugitives—like Banihashem—who continue to evade justice.

More often than not, wanted Hezbollah operatives evade capture by fleeing to Iran or just staying in Lebanon. That appears to be the case now with Hassan El Hajj Hassan and Meliad Farah, the two surviving members of the terrorist squad that perpetrated a deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, in July 2012 and who were both recently added to the list of the FBI's most wanted terrorists. Both reportedly escaped back to Lebanon after the bus bombing in Bulgaria last summer and are allegedly hiding in Southern Lebanon. Bulgarian authorities recently announced their plans to try these fugitives next year, in absentia if necessary.

If recent history is any indicator, finding and arresting the Burgas bombers so they can stand trial in person will prove difficult. Four Hezbollah members believed to be hiding in Lebanon are wanted by the U.N.'s Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), where they have been indicted on charges of carrying out the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The most prominent of the four wanted individuals, Mustafa Badreddine, has apparently not allowed his status as an international fugitive to hinder his activities. Following the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyah—himself wanted by Interpol before his demise—Baddreddine was promoted to the top militant commander in Hezbollah. In this capacity, the U.S. Treasury revealed, he is believed to be providing support to Hezbollah's "terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world." The STL plans to try the four defendants, whether or not they are in the country.

In 2009 Argentina issued an arrest warrant for Lebanese-Colombian dual-national Samuel El Reda. Described by Argentinean authorities as “the coordinator of [Hezbollah] sleeper cells” in Buenos Aires and the Tri-Border Area in South America in the period leading up to the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, El Reda is also believed to be evading capture by hiding in Lebanon.

Ahmed Al Mughassil and Hussein Mohamed Al Nasser are wanted for the 1996 bombing of the  Khobar Towers military complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US Air Force personnel, wounded 372 other Americans as well as killing an unknown number of Saudi citizens who were unfortunate to be in the vicinity of the complex. Al Mughassil and Al Nasser are believed to be in Iran.

There are some rare exceptions, however, including one in which the FBI penetrated a Hezbollah criminal enterprise with nodes in North America and Europe that was raising (dirty) money and procuring weapons for the group's operatives in Lebanon. A sophisticated FBI dragnet—a story right out of Hollywood—led to the arrest of several senior operatives who ventured out of Lebanon. Others, including one Hezbollah operative nicknamed "Mr. Lebanon" for his refusal to venture beyond Lebanon's borders, within which he knows he is safe from capture or arrest, remain fugitives. This investigation led to the November 2009 arrest of Dani Tarraf, a German-Lebanese arms procurement agent for Hezbollah who maintained homes in Lebanon and Slovakia and had significant business interests in China and Lebanon. A few months later, in June 2010, another Hezbollah operative tied to this case, Moussa Ali Hamdan, was taken into custody by Paraguayan officials in Asuncion. Hamdan escaped arrest by fleeing the United States for Lebanon, but calculated he could travel to the Paraguayan side of South America's Tri-Border area without risking arrest, given Hezbollah’s strong presence in the area. But in February 2011 Hamdan was extradited to the US and made his first court appearance; in July 2013, he received an eleven-year sentence.

Mohammad Ali Hamadi is still wanted by U.S. authorities for his role in one of Hezbollah’s earliest terrorist acts. In June, 1985, Hamadi and another Hezbollah operative hijacked TWA Flight 847. For 15 days the story dominated headlines as the plane crisscrossed the Middle East, making Hezbollah a household name. Hamadi is believed to be the one who shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Stetham in the head and tossed his body onto the tarmac. That November, Hamadi was indicted by the U.S. government for his role in the hijacking and Stethem's murder. In 1987, German authorities arrested Hamadi at Frankfurt airport and found liquid explosives in his luggage. He was imprisoned in Germany until 2005, when he was released on parole and returned to Lebanon.

Today, Hezbollah is in deep trouble. The self-described "resistance" organization pledged to Israel's destruction is tied down in a brutal sectarian war in Syria where it is "resisting" fellow Muslims, including fellow Lebanese citizens. Hezbollah's role in the Syrian war has cost it tremendous grassroots and political support at home, where the sectarian fighting is bleeding across the border and risking renewed civil war. But Hezbollah is also suffering from a series of arrests and prosecutions that are peeling away the organization's "resistance" facade and exposing the group as the terrorist network and criminal enterprise that it is. And as Hezbollah's standing in Lebanon continues to implode, perhaps in time the country might not be the comfortable and guaranteed safe-haven for Hezbollah fugitives it has been for decades.

Matthew Levitt directs the Stein program on counterterrorism and intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is the author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God.

Source of article
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114831/hezbollah-terrorists-still-find-refuge-lebanon

Egypt's Muslim Brothers Have Three Options for Moving Forward After the Ban

The 16 months after Hosni Mubarak’s dramatic February 2011 ouster, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood quickly rose from the cave to the castle, winning the parliamentary and presidential elections, and then appointing its members to executive positions across the Egyptian government. But 15 months and an uprising-cum-coup later, even the Brotherhood’s former caves are off-limits to it. On Monday, a Cairo court ruled the Brotherhood illegal and authorized the military-backed government to seize its assets and properties.
To some extent, the court’s decision reinforces the decapitation strategy that the military has pursued against the Brotherhood since it toppled Mohamed Morsi on July 3, which has hampered the organization’s capabilities significantly. But whereas decapitation left open the possibility that rank-and-file Muslim Brothers might select new—and perhaps less aggressive—leaders over time, Monday’s court ruling will have much longer term consequences, unless it is overturned on appeal. The prohibition on “all activities” will affect the Brotherhood’s social service networks, through which it reaches out to the Egyptian public and recruits new members, and might also invalidate its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.
In the aftermath of the decision, many commentators have insisted that outlawing the Brotherhood will not destroy Islamism in Egypt, and this is certainly true. Theocratic ideologies will always enjoy support in that notoriously religious country, and several Islamist parties—including those that are more radical than the Brotherhood—remain untouched. But Islamism is also safe because, despite its insistence that “Islam is the solution,” the Brotherhood has never articulated a coherent Islamist vision. Far from representing any specific concept of what its stated goal of an “Islamic state” might entail, the Brotherhood is, first and foremost, a cultish and hierarchal vanguard, whose priority is internal cohesion and complete obedience to its own institutional directives. And whereas ideas rarely die, cults often do.
Indeed, the outlawing of the Muslim Brotherhood could, in fact, destroy it, at least within Egypt. But that would still leave perhaps hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file former members, who are unlikely to abandon the radical quest for total control—“Islamizing the society” and then “Islamizing the state,” as they term it—that the Brotherhood indoctrinated them to pursue during the five-to-eight year tarbiya process through which one become a brother. So what will these ordinary Brothers do?  I can anticipate three possibilities, two of which would provide a basis for possible resurrection.
First, in lieu of the organization’s nationwide command chain, ordinary Muslim Brothers may generally look towards those leaders who have gone into exile for guidance. The Brotherhood has already moved its media operations to London, and at least three of its six top leaders are outside of Egypt: Secretary-general Mahmoud Hussein is in Turkey and deputy supreme guide Gomaa Amin is in London, while deputy supreme guide Mahmoud Ezzat is believed to be in Gaza. (The whereabouts of a fourth top leader, Mahmoud Ghozlan, are unknown.) From this foreign perch, Brotherhood leaders have rejected an Egypt-based leader’s attempt at reconciling with the Egyptian public, and called on Muslim Brothers in Egypt to continue protesting against Morsi’s ouster—which they have done, albeit with much lower numbers than before. While the Brotherhood would not be able to coordinate highly detailed activities from abroad without a command-chain within Egypt, it could keep ordinary Brothers engaged, thus keeping the ground fertile for Brotherhood leaders to return and reestablish the organization if and when a political opening emerges.
Second, ordinary Muslim Brothers may decide to participate in elections, perhaps after a few years, as independents. Without a national organization controlling their strategy, they might decide to run in some areas and not others, and they would stand a better chance of performing well than is currently appreciated. While it is true that the Brotherhood is extremely unpopular at the moment, this could change as Egypt’s economy continues its decline under the military-backed government. More importantly, given that the more local levels of the Brotherhood’s leadership have not been arrested, Muslim Brothers could coordinate within districts to choose candidates and efficiently mobilize supporters through interpersonal networks that will survive even without the Brotherhood’s hierarchy. The fact that Egypt’s political field is otherwise deeply divided among dozens of parties, many of which are barely distinct from one another ideologically as well as poorly organized, would advantage well-organized Brotherhood independents. Brotherhood independents might then use those victories to push for renewed freedom for resurrecting their now-defunct organization.
Third, ordinary Muslim Brothers may abandon the Brotherhood and turn to other Islamist movements, including violent ones. After all, younger Muslim Brothers tend to be more radical than their strategically conservative leaders, and they may now act on that radicalism.  Moreover, rank-and-file Muslim Brothers have used violence as a political tool in the recent past—most notably last December, when Brotherhood cadres attacked, tortured, and killed protesters outside the presidential palace in northern Cairo. And history is rich with examples of Muslim Brothers who turned towards jihadi activities during periods of state repression.
It is precisely this scenario that worries Egypt observers, and some have argued that Washington should have firmly rejected Morsi’s ouster precisely to prevent Muslim Brothers from taking up arms. This argument, however, creates the false choice between a violent Brotherhood out of power and pacific Brotherhood in power: During Morsi’s year in office, the Brotherhood repeatedly demonstrated its totalitarian aims and its willingness to use violence against its opponents in pursuing those aims. This is a big part of the reason that millions of Egyptians rose up against it in the first place.
But more to the point, individual Muslim Brothers’ turn towards terrorism would validate an even more thorough regime crackdown—one that would not only target the Brotherhood’s organization, but its rank-and-file members broadly. The appropriate analogy would be the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which was routed from Syria in 1982 after a subset of its members known as the Fighting Vanguard took up arms against the regime, and has been practically nonexistent in that country for three decades.
In other words, Muslim Brothers’ turn towards violence would simply make the effects of Monday’s ruling permanent.
Eric Trager is the Esther K. Wagner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Source of article
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114840/egypt-bans-muslim-brotherhood-three-ways-move-forward

Obama Just Gave His Most Significant Foreign Policy Speech

 

BY JOHN B. JUDIS

President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday to the United Nations was his most significant foreign policy statement since becoming president. It showed he had clearly learned something from the recent “red line” fiasco in Syria. The speech also displayed what has always been the most attractive feature of Obama’s foreign policy, one that clearly sets him off from his predecessor—his willingness to court erstwhile enemies and adversaries, or to put it in negative terms, his not possessing what my former colleague Peter Scoblic called an “us versus them” view of the world.
The speech was a departure in one very obvious way. Two years ago, the Obama administration had announced a “pivot to Asia” in its foreign policy, but Obama’s speech to the U.N. was almost entirely devoted to the greater Middle East with a footnote here or there to Africa. Obama mentioned China only once—as one of the nations engaged in nuclear weapons talks with Iran—and didn’t mention Japan or South Korea at all. That reflects the way the world is: The Middle East is oil—still the lifeblood of the global economy—and the Middle East continues to suffer from tectonic fault lines created by the Age of Empire in Europe.
There were specific departures in the speech from positions that Obama has taken in the past. The one that will get the most attention, and rightly so, is American policy toward Iran, but the speech also included departures in American policy toward Syria, Israel and the Palestinians, and Egypt and the Arab Spring.
Obama declared his willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran over its nuclear program. Of course, he had done that before, but it was usually punctuated by a threat of military action if Iran did develop a nuclear weapon. That threat lingered in the background in his speech; in the foreground, he acknowledged Iranian fears of the United States, dating from our helping to overthrow Iran’s government in 1953; he welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s overtures to the United States; and he said he was instructing Secretary of State John Kerry to meet with Iran’s foreign minister—the first such meeting between the country’s leading diplomats since 2007. The White House has also said it is “keeping the door open” to a meeting between Obama and Rouhani.
If Obama does achieve a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, it could have repercussions throughout the Middle East. It could make a political settlement in Syria possible. It could ease negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s hardliners would no longer have an excuse for ignoring the West Bank occupation, and Hamas would no longer have international support in refusing to back a two-state solution. And, finally, of course, a rapprochement could give the United States a strong ally in reducing the threat of terrorist movements in the Middle East and South Asia.
In Syria, the White House had initially hoped for opposition military successes that would force Bashar al Assad to leave office. Afterwards, they hoped that military successes would at least lead to a political settlement favorable to the opposition and laid out the hope that a military strike against Assad in retaliation for his use of chemical weapons would damage his overall military chances. But in Obama’s speech, he came out foursquare for a political settlement. While condemning Assad, he suggested that both sides to the conflict were imperfect.  He warned of the danger of “extremists trying to hijack change,” and he declared that a “political settlement cannot be reached without addressing the legitimate fears of Alawites and other minorities.” He also held out the possibility of Iran joining the settlement talks. “I welcome the influence of all nations that can help bring about a peaceful resolution of Syria’s civil war,” he declared. (The emphasis was in Obama’s prepared text.)
While recognizing that Russia’s Vladimir Putin must play a vital role in any political settlement, he also inserted a clever dig at the Russian’s diplomacy. “We are no longer in a Cold War. There’s no Great Game to be won, nor does America have any interest in Syria beyond the well-being of its people, the stability of its neighbors, the elimination of chemical weapons, and ensuring it does not become a safe-haven for terrorists,” Obama declared.

At the beginning of Obama’s first term, he made resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major priority, and in his initial speeches and diplomacy, he presented the conflict as one between two peoples with equal moral claims to have their own state. That infuriated the Israelis and set off a carousel of recriminations and botched negotiations that ended in mid-2011 in Obama giving up on trying to revive the peace process and turning toward attempting to conciliate his critics in America’s Jewish community. In Obama’s 2011 and 2012 speeches to the United Nations, he emphasized America’s “unshakeable” commitment to Israel and its “very real security concerns” while giving scant notice to the “aspirations of the Palestinian people.” In his 2012 speech, he devoted one out of sixty paragraphs to Israel and the Palestinians.
But in this speech, he made resolving the conflict one of America’s two greatest priorities in the region, along with reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran. And his description of the respective moral claims of the Israelis and Palestinians was conspicuously even-handed. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may still fail—I would give an agreement with Iran a greater chance of succeeding—but Obama showed that he has gone back to where he was during the Cairo speech in his first year in office. The peace process is once again getting Obama’s attention.

In the immediate aftermath of the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Obama had expressed unbounded optimism about the Arab Spring. In a State Department speech in May 2011, he compared the demonstrators in the streets to the American revolutionaries of the 1770s and to the civil rights leaders of the 1950s. And that optimism led the administration to support intervention in Libya not merely to prevent atrocities, but to achieve a victory for the opposition. It also nourished hopes that the opposition would be victorious in Syria.
But these uprisings, like those in Europe in 1848 or across the Third World after World War II, have taken two steps forward, only to take one and three-quarters steps backward. Obama was blind-sided by Assad’s refusal to step down and by the military coup in Egypt, which he has still refused to call a coup. In his speech, Obama expressed his realization at “just how hard” the transition from dictatorship to democracy had proven to be, and he laid out a diplomatic strategy heavy on Realpolitik.
In describing the events in Egypt, Obama blamed President Mohamed Morsi for his own overthrow. “Morsi,” Obama said, “was democratically elected, but proved unwilling or unable to govern in a way that was fully inclusive. The interim government that replaced him responded to the desires of millions." While criticizing the new military regime for making “decisions inconsistent with inconclusive government,” he expressed his intention to maintain amicable relations with it. The United States,” he declared, will maintain a constructive relationship with the interim government that promotes core interests like the Camp David Accords and counter-terrorism.” Obama then broadened that approach to a general pronouncement about American policy. “The United States,” he said, “will at times work with governments that do not meet the highest international expectations, but who work with us on our core interests.”
That represents a return to Obama’s earlier diplomacy and a repudiation of the idealism and interventionism of the last few years. To be sure, Obama did devote part of his speech to America’s commitment to “the hard work of foreign freedom and democracy” and “supporting the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but he foresaw doing so by “asserting principles” rather than by intervening in other countries. And if what he meant by “asserting principles” was his criticism of the Egyptian military for measures “inconsistent with inclusive government,” then the authoritarian rulers need not fear an American tongue-lashing. He did urge the United Nations to be prepared to intervene to prevent atrocities within nations, but by assigning this task to the United Nations, he denied the United States a leading role in doing so.
In all, Obama laid out in his U.N. speech a foreign policy that backs away from the policy he embraced in early 2011 during the first months of the Arab Spring. That clearly reflects the lessons Obama took from his failure to win support in Congress or internationally for an attack on Syria. “The United States has a hard-earned humility when it comes to our ability to determine events inside other countries. The notion of American empire may be useful propaganda, but it isn’t borne out by America’s current policy or public opinion. Indeed, as the recent debate within the United States over Syria clearly showed, the danger for the world is not an America that is eager to immerse itself in the affairs of other countries, or take on every problem in the region as its own.”
The danger of a turn back toward Realpolitik is that Obama will abandon even a declaratory attempt to promote human rights and the stirrings of popular rule in the Middle East. But in respect to Obama’s willingness to deal with Iran and to throw America’s weight behind a resolution of the century-old Israel-Palestinian conflict, Obama’s new turn could lead to astonishingly positive results in the Middle East. Jim Mann, the author of The Obamians, the best introduction to Obama’s foreign policy, cautioned me the other day against accepting the image of second-term presidents as lame ducks. In foreign policy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton achieved their greatest successes in their second terms, and the same may turn out to be true of Barack Obama.

source of article
 http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114839/obamas-united-nations-speech-was-his-most-significant

Hundreds of New Animal Species Discovered

While using advances in technology for genetic research, scientists have unexpectedly found new species of animals.

The new species have not previously been classified because they look the same as other species. But research reveals that these identical looking animals are so unlike in other ways that they are of separate species. The scientific literature reported 2,207 discoveries of such cryptic animal species between 1978 and 2006.
Intensively researched or biologically diverse areas are where most cryptic animals have been noticed. An analysis of the published findings of cryptic species concludes, that once these factors are accounted for, new species have been uncovered with equal frequency in all regions of the world and among all types of animals.
A large portion of the research that could detect cryptic species has been conducted in Europe and Asia. Consequently this region has the highest number of cryptic animals identified, with 447 species.
In North America, 268 cryptic animals have been found so far. In Central and South America researchers have encountered 177 cryptic species, in sub-Saharan Africa 148 species, south Asia 115, Australia and the South Pacific 184, and even 15 cryptic animals in the Antarctic.
The newly discovered species come from all phyla and classes in the animal kingdom and include 267 mammals, 94 birds, 151 fish and 996 insects. Scientists continue to discern more look-alike species at an increasing rate.
The authors of the cryptic animal meta-analysis point out that the widespread occurrence of these recently revealed species has implications for measuring the earth's biodiversity and for animal conservation.

Oral Hygiene Tips for Better Braces Care

 – A set of adult braces is just shy of $5,000 — on average, braces cost around $4,800, as estimated by the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics. Despite the unforgiving cost, without the proper care braces present oral hygiene challenges from discoloration to tooth decay.
“The accumulation of plaque puts wearers at risk for gum disease, tooth decay and discoloration,” explains Dr. Mike C. Zauner, “which is why we dentists tend to be super strict on our patients about carefully cleaning around braces.”
To steer clear of those risks and protect your investment, braces require the most methodical oral care routine available: rinsing, brushing and flossing. Read on to find three pieces of advice to help you or your family take better care of their braces.
1. Avoid sticky or sweet foods and bubbly drinks.
It can be painful to say goodbye (temporarily!) to some of your favorite treats, but the damage to your braces and teeth will always be worse.
To take good care of your braces, avoid hard foods, sticky candies, sweets and carbonated beverages. That means no popcorn, nuts, peanut brittle, ice, taffy, caramels, gum, sodas, corn-on-the-cob and the like. When eating occasional treats like soft cookies, cake or pie, brush your teeth afterward to rinse off the excess sugar as soon as possible.
2. Use the right toothbrush.
People with braces must be extra diligent about brushing their teeth. Dentists usually recommend a soft, battery powered toothbrush.
According to Dr. Manny Alvarez from the Fox News Health Talk, one of the hottest items on the market is an ultrasonic toothbrush — which is catching like wildfire because of the ultrasound technology especially designed for braces. The Emmi-Dent Ultrasonic Toothbrush uses powerful microwaves to destroy plaque and clean underneath wires and brackets. Known as the “no brushing” toothbrush, the technology provides the most thorough braces care available. To learn more about how ultrasound technology cleans braces, visit www.emmi-dent.com.
3. Floss carefully, floss often.
To floss with braces, feed the short end of the string through the space between the main arch wire and the part of the tooth closest to the gum. Work the floss on each side of the teeth by gently sawing back and forth. Don’t use too much force, especially around the wires.

What is Insomnia? What is the principal cause of Insomnia?

Understanding why we need sleep and knowing the root cause of insomnia is the first step in coming to terms with and treating it.

How do we define insomnia?
Insomnia is the term used to describe a lack of quality sleep; either taking ages to get to sleep, difficulty in staying asleep or waking up too early and being unable to get back to sleep.

What are the effects of insomnia?   

                 
People who suffer from poor quality sleep tend to be irritable, inattentive, lacking energy and accident prone.They are more likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and strokes.Continued sleep deprivation brings about changes in the activity and timing of important hormones such as melatonin, cortisol, leptin, thyroid hormones and prolactin. It has been shown in studies that this pattern of hormonal changes has also been witnessed in sufferers of depression and in age-related chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
This is just a taste of the negative effects of insomnia and that's without mentioning the adverse effect it has on our immune systems or the incredible impact from daytime fatigue on the occurrence of "accidents"; remember Chernobyl or Exxon Valdez.

What is sleep for anyway?
Nobody really knows exactly how sleep works. For centuries it was believed that sleep was just a neutral state of mind and body but modern science is beginning to identify the many positive affects a natural, good night's sleep has.

Moods
The brain's metabolic rate and temperature is reduced allowing the mending of certain brain cells which would otherwise have difficulty in regenerating.In our deepest sleeping, during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase we do most of our dreaming. It's at this stage when the receptors of the essential drugs serotonin, histamine and norepinephrine take a rest, restoring them to the appropriate level of sensitivity. This restorative measure is believed to be important in regulating our moods during the waking hours.

Sleep and weight loss

 
If you're trying to lose weight and believe that sleep loss won't adversely affect weight loss, think again. In childhood, human growth hormones (HGH) are responsible for tissue production, but as we grow into adults HGH becomes responsible for, amongst other things, weight regulation. HGH is only released when we sleep.

Sleep to learn
many studies have been conducted and they have shown that whatever we take in and learn during the waking hours needs to be processed and consolidated before it is put to memory and reflected in our abilities. The process of sleep enhances this in an inestimable way.

So what is the main cause of insomnia?
There may be many reasons why we don't sleep well but the main cause of insomnia is simply stress.
Our lives, like that of any other organism, are kept for the most part at an optimum state of balance. Our hormonal secretions, fluid levels, temperature and so on are kept in balance so that the mind and body can perform at its peak.
The "flight or fight" response when being confronted by a predator is the most common example of a stress response but it can also be triggered by much less profound events such as crowding, noise or darkness. But even less obvious is that a stress response can happen to events such as fear, anger and even extreme pleasure. Sometimes we can live in a permanent state of stress response and prolonged states of stress can leave the body in a constant state of alarm and imbalance.
The process of sleep runs contrary to the effects of stress response. Falling to sleep involves the gradual shutting down of systems, a decrease in metabolism and the cessation of the readiness for action. Going to sleep makes us less alert and decreases arousal. The stress response increases arousal and makes us more alert.

Stress is the main cause of insomnia
The hormones secreted as a result of stress responses excite the body's systems. When stress is chronic we are hyperaroused.When we are hyperaroused we can't sleep.
If you are susceptible to the stresses brought about by daily life which impact on your night time sleep there are sleeping techniques using the senses that can maximize the quality of sleep, bringing enrichment to your waking days.

Renewable Energy Resources versus Fossil Fuels

In modern western world the demand for energy has increased dramatically in the past century and it will grow even further and harder in the near future than ever before. The need for energy rises with upcoming markets that also need more energy. Energy is needed for cars, buses, and other means of transportation, but also to run our appliances and provides us light. Energy is also important for our safety. At night or in the dark a lot can be stolen without proper lightning. Energy is therefore needed for our development and safety.

The way we use energy today comes from knowledge that has it's foundations in the past century and before. Great men like Newton and Philips have set the path for us today to make proper use of energy. The sources which we use for our energy demand are known as non-renewable energy resources. These sources will be discussed here in the article.
Definition of Non-Renewable Energy Resources
The name really explains it very well. Non-renewable energy resources are natural resources that cannot be recycled or re-grown. These natural resources are fossil fuels like coal, petroleum, and natural gas. It also includes mined resources such as the elements used in the production of electricity (uranium and plutonium, for instance). These resources replenish itself in a quicker rate.
Fossil fuels are very versatile. One of their functions is to generate electricity. In order to generate electricity, fossil fuels are burned through the process of combustion. The energy produced from the combustion process is used to power a turbine. The turbine is responsible for the conversion of energy produced from combusted fossil fuels into electricity.
Coal
Coal is one the most used fossil fuels. It is consider too be the most important energy source to produce electricity. The U.S. produces 50% of its energy supply through the combustion of coal. The coal itself is a brownish-black sedimentary rock which contains carbon and other assorted elements. It is extracted from the ground through underground mining or open-pit mining.

Natural Gas
Natural gas is also used to produce electricity. The electricity is produced through steam turbines and gas turbines. Because the gas contains methane the combustion emits less harmful gasses that have a negative effect on global warming. Thus natural gasses are better for the environment compared to petroleum and coal.
There is also another use for it and that is as fuel for cars. It is much cheaper that gasoline and produces less harmful gasses. The disadvantage of running your car on natural gas is that you need more fuel compared to gasoline and the car needs more maintenance. In countries like Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Italy, The Netherlands and India it is used as a fuel for cars.
Crude oil
This fuel is the most talk about for the past year(s). The prices for crude oil have gone through the roof and will be rising even more. The demand is increasing while there is less crude oil available. The term black gold is now more applicable than ever before.
The oil itself is very think in consistency and has a dark brown or greenish colour characteristic. It is a complex mixture of different hydrocarbons.
Crude oil or petroleum has various uses. It can be used as fuel or cars and different industrial machines. It is also used as a raw material for products like plastics, solvents, fertilizers and pesticides.
Although the need for crude oil is high and the demand is rising the available crude oil is decreasing. That leaves us no other option than to look for alternatives.
Non-renewable energy plays a very important role in our daily lives. Non-renewable energy will be needed today and in the future. Because this energy source cannot be recycled or re-grown the reserves are limited. The consequences of the shortages of fossil fuels are experienced today and tomorrow. We will need to use these fossil fuels wisely and will need to shift our focus to other renewable energy source. These are the sources that we need to focus on today and years to come.