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Tag Archives: Iran US Relationship
Trump's Syrian Mistake
The Daily Escape
(Aleppo's Umayyad mosque, photographed before the war, in 2009)
Joshua Landis edits a blog called "Syria Comment", and his last post was about Trump's strategy for taking Raqqa from ISIS. He thinks allying with Turkey at the expense of the Kurds is a mistake.
Wrongo's March 13 post discussed Trump's Syrian strategy:
We are watching a continuation of the policy that predates the Trump presidency, the balkanization of Syria by alternative means…Trump's "A Team" of generals seem to have fallen back on the old plan.
Landis thinks that Trump is planning to give the Turks free hand in taking Raqqa and most likely all of the Euphrates Valley. Turkey has proposed taking Raqqa from the north at Tel Abyad. The map below points out the geography:
Tel Abyad is the large black dot near the top of the map. This approach would drive through the middle of the Kurdish region (the purple shaded area above), cutting it in two. This splitting of the Kurdish territory is the main reason Turkey has offered to take Raqqa. From Landis:
Turkey hopes to establish its Arab proxies in a new "Euphrates state" in eastern Syria. This would partition Syria into three states: a western Assad-ruled state; an eastern Turkish and Sunni Arab rebel-ruled state, and a northern Kurdish state.
If the US allows Turkey to do this, it will lose the Kurds as allies in the attack on Raqqa, or in any other part of ISIS territory. Turkey says it is the only way that they can participate, because Assad's army has already taken territory east of Aleppo, which has cut off Turkey's access to Raqqa via al-Bab. Landis asks:
Why are the Kurds willing to take Raqqa even though they do not have territorial interests in and around Raqqa? They are investing in their relationship with the US. They assume that it will serve them well over the long run when it comes to their political aspirations.
A major issue with following Turkey's plan is that they have dangerous Islamic fundamentalist allies. Turkey's Arab rebel allies include Ahrar al-Sham, (similar to the Taliban, and adamantly opposed to the US). If the Turkey/Ahrar coalition rules the Euphrates post-ISIS, it will become a haven for Salafists and al-Qaida's coalition.
For the past five years, Turkey has teamed with al-Qaida's forces in Syria. It allowed them to mass inside Turkey in 2013. Turkey has no problem with them being part of its Arab force, since their strategy is to use the Salafists as proxies in thwarting Kurdish regional ambitions. More from Landis:
These…are the reasons that American generals do not want to work with Turkey. They don't trust it, both because it wants to attack our Kurdish allies and because it is soft on al-Qaida-like rebel groups.
Our generals don't fully trust this NATO partner to act in America's interest!
What's more, there is a likelihood that Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iraq would move against a Turkey-led Sunni land grab. They will not allow a Sunni rebel enclave in the middle of their spheres of influence. Landis: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
The US would [then] be expected to side with Turkey and the Sunni rebels in a long and escalating war against the Shiites. I think this is a swamp waiting to suck the US into its malodorous depths.
For more than 15 years, we have been engaged in a war in the Middle East. Now, the Pentagon is planning to send another 1, 000 troops to Syria in the coming weeks. This is indeed an endless war.
Let's get ISIS, but we shouldn't be teaming solely with the Turks in the effort to destroy ISIS. The great Orange negotiator should stand up to the Turks on this.
Now for some Syrian music. Here is Refugees of Rap with their song, "Haram" ("Forbidden" in Arabic):
Sample Lyrics (translated):
Came out of the house
I smelled gunpowder
Voices from the minarets
Say go back to your houses
Shells on the neighborhoods come down like rain
I felt more scared, I felt a sense of danger
I completed my way and approaching death to me more and more
Average people say Allahu Akbar
I saw the neighborhood; neighborhood was red in color
The smell of blood and body parts in front of me scatter
I ran to help my friend was injured
Hospitals in dire need of blood donation and mosques shouting
Walls in the streets become white in color
If The Saudis Want to Fight Iran, the US Should Stand Back and Watch
According to breaking news, the Saudis severed ties with Iran after protesters in Tehran set fire to the Saudi embassy in riots over the execution by Saudi Arabia of the Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The Saudis are leaning on the Gulf States to break relations with Iran also.
Remember that Iran is a Shiite nation while the Saudis are majority Sunni, as are the Gulfies.
We don't know if the Saudi charges and verdict against al-Nimr were trumped-up, or if his execution was a deliberate provocation, but, why didn't Iran do a better job of guarding the Saudi embassy? Wrongo's first thoughts went back to the 444 days that the US embassy was held by Iran. Was there a better way for Iran to remind America of that historic black eye?
Was Iran dumb, or simply ready to flex their new, post-sanctions muscles against Saudi Arabia?
And what about the new king in Saudi Arabia? Are these executions more about internal House of Saud politicking rather than a direct message to Iran? Is it more important for the Boy Prince Saud to establish his anti-Shia cred with his opponents in the ruling family? A secondary effect may be to rile the Iranians, since the Boy Prince is currently losing his wars in Yemen and in Syria. Perhaps a provocative execution is just what he needs to shore up public support.
The Saudis have now accused Iran of supporting terrorism. At the same time, some US lawmakers want to move the goalposts and make recent Iranian missile firings an issue, even though those missiles were never were part of the deal between the US and Iran.
Expect to see these two issues – Iranian support of terrorism and the Iranian missiles – to be dominant themes in the GOP primaries in an effort to tarnish Obama and Clinton while hoping to stall implementation of the Iran Nuclear deal. The GOP posturing about the Saudi execution continued with Republican presidential hopefuls failing to condemn the executions, while highlighting the strong alliance between Washington and Riyadh on the Sunday bobble head shows.
The fun then went full Sharia with Ben Carson suggesting that the nuclear deal struck last July between Iran, the US and five other world powers pushed Saudi Arabia to violently repress its Shiite population:
The Saudis have been one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, and I think it's unfortunate that we put them in the position we have by showing the support to Iran that we have with this foolish deal…There's no reason for the Saudis to believe that we're really on their side when we do things like that.
And when you hear a medical doctor making excuses for mass executions, you gotta just change channels. And since you know he is vehemently pro-life, you have to cringe while you do it.
Carly Fiorina dismissed Iran's reaction to the death of the leading anti-government protester:
I take the Iranian condemnation with a huge grain of salt…This is a regime that tortures citizens routinely, that thinks nothing of executions, that still holds four Americans in jail. Saudi Arabia is our ally, despite the fact that they don't always behave in a way that we condone…Iran is a real and present threat.
You've got to hand it to these GOP candidates. It's nearly impossible to be on the wrong side of nearly every geopolitical issue, but these folks are actually nailing it!
Wahhabism is the state-sponsored form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's export of Wahhabism throughout the Middle East is without question a greater threat to ME peace than Iran's missiles.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 158 people. They justify the executions as part of its strict interpretation of Sharia law. Punishing government protesters with death while citing Sharia law has led The New York Times editorial board to compare the kingdom's judicial system to that of ISIS. Yet, unlike ISIS, Saudi Arabia currently sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council and, as both Fiorina and Carson noted, Saudi Arabia is considered a key US ally in the fight against the Assad regime in Syria.
Because of this, even our State Department did not fully condemn the Saudi executions, only voicing "concerns" over the practice. Here is empty suit spokesperson John Kirby:
We have previously expressed our concerns about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and have frequently raised these concerns at high levels of the Saudi Government…
Weasel words from the State Department.
We should see this as a time to re-balance our ME policy, and be less pro-Sunni.
We shouldn't have a dog in this fight.
America's "Fill in the Blanks" Middle East Policy
(There will be no further posting until Monday 10/26, since Wrongo and Ms. Oh So Right are attending a weekend family reunion)
We have been talking about our failed strategy in the Middle East for several days. Here is a great observation by Tom Englehardt that summarizes our all-too-true ME reality:
Sometimes I imagine the last 14 years of American war policy in the Greater Middle East as a set of dismal Mad Libs. An example might be: The United States has spent [your choice of multiple billions of dollars] building up [fill in name of Greater Middle Eastern country]'s army and equipping it with [range of weaponry of your choosing]. That army was recently routed by the [rebel or terrorist group of your choice] and fled, abandoning [list U.S. weaponry and equipment]. Washington has just sent in more [choose from: trainers/weaponry/equipment/all of the above] and [continue the sentence ad infinitum]. Or here's another: After [number, and make it large] years and a [choose one or more: war, air war, drone assassination campaign, intervention, counterinsurgency program, counterterror effort, occupation] in [Greater Middle Eastern country of your choice] that seems to be [choose from: failing, unraveling, going nowhere, achieving nothing], the [fill in office of top U.S. official of your choice] has just stated that a U.S. withdrawal would be [choose from: counterproductive, self-defeating, inconceivable, politically unpalatable, dangerous to the homeland, mad] because [leave this blank, since no one knows].
Englehardt's blog, TomDispatch, has an important article by Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, who spent a year in Iraq. The article is entitled: What If They Gave a War and Everyone Came? − What Could Possibly Go Wrong (October 2015 Edition)
You should read it all, but here are some extensive quotes:
In March 2003, when the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq, the region, though simmering as ever, looked like this: Libya was stable, ruled by the same strongman for 42 years; in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak had been in power since 1983; Syria had been run by the Assad family since 1971; Saddam Hussein had essentially been in charge of Iraq since 1969, formally becoming president in 1979; the Turks and Kurds had an uneasy but functional ceasefire; and Yemen was quiet enough, other than the terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Relations between the U.S. and most of these nations were so warm that Washington was routinely rendering "terrorists" to their dungeons for some outsourced torture.
Soon after March 2003, when U.S. troops invaded Iraq, neighboring Iran faced two American armies at the peak of their strength. To the east, the U.S. military had effectively destroyed the Taliban and significantly weakened al-Qaeda, both enemies of Iran, but had replaced them as an occupying force. To the west, Iran's decades-old enemy, Saddam, was gone, but similarly replaced by another massive occupying force. From this position of weakness, Iran's leaders, no doubt terrified that the Americans would pour across its borders, sought real diplomatic rapprochement with Washington for the first time since 1979. The Iranian efforts were rebuffed by the Bush administration.
There hadn't been such an upset in the balance of power in the Middle East since, well, World War I, when Great Britain and France secretly reached the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which, among other things, divided up most of the Arab lands that had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Because the national boundaries created then did not respect on-the-ground tribal, political, ethnic, and religious realities, they could be said to have set the stage for much that was to come.
What if the U.S. hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003? Things would undoubtedly be very different in the Middle East today. America's war in Afghanistan was unlikely to have been a big enough spark to set off the range of changes Iraq let loose. There were only some 10,000 America soldiers in Afghanistan in 2003 (5,200 in 2002) and there had not been any Abu Ghraib-like indiscriminate torture, no equivalent to the scorched earth policy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, nothing to spark a trans-border Sunni-Shia-Kurd struggle, no room for Iran to meddle. The Americans were killing Muslims in Afghanistan, but they were not killing Arabs, and they were not occupying Arab lands.
And finally: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The invasion of Iraq, however, did happen. Now, some 12 years later, the most troubling thing about the current war in the Middle East, from an American perspective, is that no one here really knows why the country is still fighting. The commonly stated reason — "defeat ISIS" — is hardly either convincing or self-explanatory. Defeat ISIS why?
What are we doing in the ME?
What end state do we want?
Why the Hysteria about Russia and Syria?
Tom Friedman gets it right:
Today's reigning cliché is that the wily fox, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, has once again outmaneuvered the flat-footed Americans, by deploying some troops, planes and tanks to Syria to buttress the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and to fight the Islamic State forces threatening him. If only we had a president who was so daring, so tough, so smart.
The hysterical neocon viewpoint was amply represented by who else but John McCain, who told CNN's Chris Cuomo that he could confirm that Russia's initial strikes were:
Against our Free Syrian Army (FSA) or groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA, because we have communications with people there.
There was no similar howl of angst when NATO member Turkey started bombing the West's friends the Kurds, instead of ISIS. So, no hypocrisy here.
And McCain calls them our FSA? We have no FSA, although the CIA trains a few groups. The prevailing neocon fantasy, that we could have prevented the Syrian mess by training and arming a bigger, badder "Free Syrian Army", continues to pollute the Syrian issue, preventing honest debate. We trained and armed a million soldiers in Vietnam, 300,000+ in Iraq, and tens of thousands in Afghanistan. How did those efforts work out?
And our training of Syrian "moderate rebels" has been a total bust.
But, the Russians' first foray didn't hit ISIS, they hit other groups. Word is they hit targets north and west of Homs (al-Rastan, Talbisah and al-Zafaraaneh). This is an area controlled not by ISIS, but other rebel groups. And right on cue, we heard that they hit the Syrian "moderates".
Imagine, the US couldn't find "moderate" rebels for 3 years, but the Russians found them in 24 hours!
McCain characterized the Russian air strikes as:
An incredible flouting of any kind of cooperation or effort to conceal what their first — Putin's priority is. And that is of course to prop up Bashar al-Assad.
It's time for the US to move on. We need to accept the reality that Assad won't be dealt with until the Islamist threat in Syria and Iraq is contained. It's also time to let the Russians have a shot at containing the Islamist threat. Whatever Russia's entry into Syria does for the confrontation with ISIS, it has clarified our thinking. Our strategy says we can't work with Assad and Iran to attack ISIS. Putin's strategy says work with Assad and Iran to attack Assad's enemies and ISIS simultaneously:
• Putin's first priority will be to secure the Russian base at Tartus and its air base at Latakia. That is what he has done with his initial strikes, as some insurgents have already tried to hit the Russian air base with rockets.
• After securing western and central Syria, Russia will work to take out ISIS, starting with eliminating a few ISIS groups that threaten Russian territory.
So, what should we be doing? Col. Pat Lang has a few ideas:
1. Obama should act as if Russia and Iran are more than just rivals and adversaries. This will take courage and leadership on his part to explain to the American people.
2. Obama must fully coordinate operations, intelligence analysis sharing and logistics with Russian and Iran.
3. We should forget about positive contributions to the ISIS fight from Turkey. Turkey is a major part of the problem.
4. We should ignore Saudi Arabia's wishes with regard to Syria, since they support the jihadis.
Friedman describes the big advantage to letting Putin take the lead in Syria:
Let's say the US did nothing right now, and just let Putin start bombing ISIS and bolstering Assad. How long before every Sunni Muslim in the Middle East, not to mention every jihadist, has Putin's picture in a bull's eye on his cellphone?
No one is arguing that Bashar al-Assad is a benevolent leader, but when US media and analysts at some think tanks start describing al-Qaeda as "moderate", we need to rethink our strategy. Again.
You can't go into Syria under the pretext of fighting ISIS and simultaneously try to depose Assad, only to gripe when Russia also goes into Syria under the pretext of fighting ISIS and props up Assad.
That sword cuts both ways.
The bottom line is that the US, and its ME and European allies are going to have to admit that getting rid of Assad is a secondary priority to our absolute requirement to contain and ultimately eliminate the threat from ISIS. They also must admit that none of the groups that the CIA and our ME allies have trained and supported represent a viable alternative to the Assad regime.
The sooner we do, the sooner Syria will cease to be the jihadi chessboard du jour, on which ISIS and a civil war in Syria have left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead.
We need to turn a corner. Our current thinking has failed.
Did the AP Promote an Untruth About Iran?
Last Wednesday, PBS NewsHour reported about the Iran nuclear deal, and how it stood with Congress: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
JUDY WOODRUFF: The Associated Press reports today that under an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate one location it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms. This comes about halfway through the 60-day period that Congress has to scrutinize the Iran nuclear deal with the U.S. and five other countries…
Sadly, it turned out that this allegation in the AP story was untrue. George Jahn wrote the story, in which he cites a "draft" of an agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran on inspection of Iran's Parchin site, rumored to be the location of their nuclear weapons program. Further complicating matters, Jahn's story went through several edits soon after its release.
Fortunately, a report by Max Fisher at Vox walks you through the evolution of Jahn's story. Fisher relies heavily on Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk, who was quick to note the level of duplicity coming from Jahn:
The oldest Washington game is being played in Vienna…And that is leaking what appears to be a prejudicial and one-sided account of a confidential document to a friendly reporter, and using that to advance a particular policy agenda.
What Fisher missed, though, is that George Jahn is the poster child for the type of behavior that Lewis describes. Emptywheel reports that Jahn has been playing precisely this game at AP for years, mostly surrounding Iran and its nuclear program.
In reading about how events evolved after Jahn put up his first version of the story, it pays to look at these events in the light of the usual tennis match of lopsided accusations and the propaganda that develops around it. Iran deal opponents jumped on the story so quickly that it seemed that they had a heads-up regarding when it would go live. Republicans in Congress were able to get their comments on the "secret side deal benefiting Iran" into some of the early revisions of Jahn's article.
And that may have been the precise reason that Jahn was given the copy of the draft agreement, because his viewpoint was seen as the last, best chance to disrupt the deal in Congress.
One more point needs noting in this context. Deal opponents, as mentioned above, were quick to spin the agreement between the IAEA and Iran as being kept secret because it is such a sweet deal for Iran. That paints the picture that the IAEA is on Iran's side.
As Vox notes, confidentiality in agreements of this type are the norm.
Juan Cole reports on an email from Gary Sick, an expert on Iran and security, who pointed out that the Accord actually provides for the inspectors of the IAEA always to be present at such inspections. The reason for the presence of Iranian experts is that there is a long history of outside nuclear inspectors being sent in by the Great Powers for espionage. As an example, the 1990s UN inspections of Iraq were infiltrated by US intelligence. So, the Iranian inspectors are there to keep an eye on the UN inspectors, not to cover up Iranian activities (to which the IAEA will have full access).
AP ultimately removed most of its allegations from the story.
Once again this is proof that there is absolutely no downside for a "journalist" to report negative news about Iran (or in the case of the PBS News hour, quickly pass it along). In fact, there is a strong possibility that a serial fabricator like George Jahn will be able to continue to have his work published, even after being proven inaccurate more than once.
One of the problems citizens face in evaluating complex geopolitical issues is that they are often unexplainable in sound bites. This is true for global warming, or for lung cancer from cigarette smoking. It is also true for the Iran deal, which leaves us too easily confused by parties with an agenda. And although many of our journalists are admirable, some people advertised as journalists just aren't very good – there are always a few Judith Millers (who sold us the Iraq War) with an agenda.
From the reporting leading up to the Iraq War, reporting on Israel in Gaza and now Iran, the US media has a lot to answer for. This was not just careless reporting, since the AP deliberately left out contradictory language from the document they quoted. We need to demand more accurate and unbiased reporting.
This was far from a proud moment for journalism.
The Baddest Bad-ass GOP Hawk
This is Wrongo's last column on Iran for a bit. There are several million words written every day about the nuclear deal, and events may yet overtake us all on the subject. But, it is difficult to let it disappear in the rear-view mirror without looking at the Republican presidential candidates' trying to say that they will tear up the deal on the day they take office.
Consider Scott Walker, who, according to the Weekly Standard, wants to make it clear that he is the baddest Republican hawk. Walker spoke to reporters after an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit, saying that the next president must be prepared to take aggressive action against Iran, possibly including military strikes, on the day he or she is inaugurated. Walker said he would not be comfortable with a commander-in-chief who is unwilling to act aggressively on day one of a new presidency.
Makes you want to know what Walker thinks should happen on day two, or does his planning just stop on day one?
Jeb Bush tried to be the responsible baddest hawk. The Weekly Standard reported that Bush said in response to Walker's statement:
One thing that I won't do is just say, as a candidate, 'I'm going to tear up the agreement on the first day.' That's great, that sounds great but maybe you ought to check in with your allies first, maybe you ought to appoint a secretary of state, maybe secretary of defense, you might want to have your team in place, before you take an act like that.
These positions aren't really different, and both are reckless. Vowing to undo the agreement puts pressure on all GOP candidates to articulate an alternative. And why should voters trust the Republican nominee with the presidency when he is eager to boast about his readiness to start a war against a country that just negotiated a nuclear weapons agreement with the US and its allies?
The US would not be defending itself or anyone else, (that means you, Israel) by launching an attack on Iran, but it would be committing a breach of the UN Charter. In the process, it would also be exposing our forces and some of Iran's neighbors to retaliation. And, it would risk dragging the rest of the region into a larger war.
Politically, Democrats will make the case that the only alternative to the Iran deal would be war, so supporting the agreement should end up being the majority position in the US. Already, a Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that 56% of Americans support the deal, though about 60% are skeptical that it will work, suggesting that, Americans want to give it a try, even if success is far from assured.
Even the American Conservative's Daniel Larison disproved:
If Iran were building a nuclear weapon, the US would be in the wrong to launch a "preventive" attack on them. To do so after Iran starts scaling back and limiting its nuclear program would be an even greater crime. Walker's thinking about "very possibly" attacking Iran immediately after taking office would be indefensible warmongering even if there were no deal with Iran.
George W. Bush's preventive war against Iraq was the stupidest blunder in the history of US foreign policy. That only 12 years later, so many Republican presidential candidates are considering the possibility of repeating that blunder in Iran is appalling.
While no one thought it was possible, Scott Walker is making George W. Bush look thoughtful. Walker is trying to out-hawk the rest of the Republican field, but instead, is coming across as a kook. Next, in an attempt to outdo Walker, some candidate will pledge he'll launch a nuclear strike on Iran on Election Day.
Most of the Republican candidates basically are in favor of a war with Iran, and there is little doubt that the Republicans will beat that war drum all the way to November, 2016.
And if Walker is a real Republican, he'll get America's corporations to build a private nuclear strike capability; and he would pledge to use it after the New Hampshire primary.
His right-wing talking point would be that we can't have the government picking winners and losers when it comes to manufacturing a nuclear crisis or nuclear weapons.
Hawks Ignore a Key Point in Iran Deal
One of the big objections by Israel and the GOP hawks to the Iran deal is that release of sanctions enables Iran to purchase advanced weapons that the sanctions have prevented for 30 years. And with the release of Iran's $100 billion in blocked funds, it will have big bucks to spend on them. Robert Farley reports that both Russia and China have been looking forward to this moment. Some say they pushed hard for the nuclear deal, since they had much to gain in the form of weapons sales.
The fact that Russia and China didn't break the sanctions regime a long time ago should be considered almost a miracle, but Farley thinks that despite their interest in tweaking the US, neither favors a nuclear Iran. In the past, Iran acquired weapons from both Russia and China, as well as from the US. We can expect them to look to Russia and China, since Iran is a tempting buyer in the emerging arms export competition between Moscow and Beijing.
But, Matthew Weybrecht at the Lawfare blog thinks that most arms sales to Iran could still be a few years in the future. He reports that, according to the Implementation Plan (Annex V), sanctions relief will begin upon IAEA-verified implementation of (specified) nuclear-related measures. It is not entirely clear when "IAEA-verified implementation" will begin, but Weybrecht thinks it will probably be sometime in early 2016.
Why? Because a copy of the proposed UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC) has been leaked to the press. The Resolution terminates the previous Iran sanctions, but also immediately imposes a new regime that retains certain arms restrictions, including continuing the arms and ballistic missile embargoes for five and eight years, respectively.
These new (really continuing) restrictions came in a separate "statement" (which the UNSC requires all states to comply with) and actually takes the form of permitting specific purchases, but only with the advance, affirmative permission of the UNSC.
In effect, this amounts to an embargo from which the UNSC can grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis, and the US can use its veto to block transfers it does not like. The Obama administration gets to claim that the arms embargo will stay in effect for years after Implementation, and that it can veto any Iranian purchases it worries could destabilize the region.
It is now possible to see a little into the future: Iran gets its $100 billion back, but they will have trouble getting approval to purchase advanced weapons like cruise missiles, which would be deeply worrying to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Gulf States. And the international restrictions probably mean that neither China nor Russia will want to take the risk of exporting them to Iran.
Iran has a relatively impressive air defense network, but it will require an infusion of new technology to provide real protection from Israel or US air attack. Approval from the UN for new air defense weapons may prove impossible to get in the near term.
Farley indicates that Iran has other needs, including modern ground combat vehicles, modern small naval vessels, and a host of support equipment. Those probably would be approved by the UN.
Iran would probably be permitted to purchase low-end aircraft from either China or Russia. Planes from either country would represent an improvement over current Iranian capabilities. In the longer term, depending on how well the nuclear deal holds together, Iran could purchase aircraft on par with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
So, who won the negotiation?
The US and the rest of the P5+1 get to retain the most important military restrictions for at least a few more years.
Iran gets significant economic relief from the sanctions and gets to claim it got all the sanctions immediately eliminated.
Yet, it bears noting that if China and Russia didn't break the arms embargo before, there is little reason to think they will do that going forward. And if they did, would they continue down that path after the UN Security Council said "no" to a specific arms deal?
But, Iran with access to modern military weapons could pose a greater threat to the region than an Iran with a few crude nuclear devices it could never use. That potential risk, along with the nuclear risk, is now postponed for a few years in the future.
This is the agreement we've got. Implementation will be challenging, even if all parties are acting in good faith, not just because its constraints are complicated, but because irreconcilable parties in Iran and the US, including most Republicans, favor its demise.
Monday Wake-Up Call – July 20, 2015
The Wrongologist is like many who tried to read "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon back in the day, and could not finish it. However, there is a wonderful thought in the book: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."
That thought describes the campaign by those who are against the Iran deal. Get people thinking about anything but the deal, and there is a good chance it will not be approved in Congress.
But this isn't only a US-Iran deal. Our Congress can't derail the deal, it can only nullify US participation in it. If that happens, we will be the ones left out. For more than a decade, Iran has been near the top of our Middle East agenda. Along the way, the risks inherent in Iran's nuclear program have been inflated, in part because it helps drive the prevailing Western view of Iran as a rogue state; in part, because it was crucial to the sanctions regime that the Western countries constructed, and ideally, it might have helped to topple the regime.
This view prevails today in Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as among Washington's neo-cons, all of whom see Iran as the major source of disorder in the region.
Before getting bogged down in the debate about the deal, stop and appreciate the single most important accomplishment here. We live in a world where nuclear weapons are easy to develop or to purchase, which is a huge potential problem. We must have a non-proliferation program that the international community agrees on and will make every effort to enforce.
What's key in the Iran deal is that the world united to say that it's very important that we don't sit back and do nothing while new countries get nuclear weapons. In this sense, the accomplishment isn't really specific to Iran. The most significant thing is that we can agree that non-proliferation is the goal, and come together to prevent the spread of nuclear weaponry. If Turkey or Saudi Arabia decide tomorrow that they want a nuclear weapons program, there will be a credible system in place to deter them.
And if blocking Iran from making a nuclear bomb was the real goal, this deal offered the best choice. Despite what Netanyahu and American chicken hawks believe, we cannot eliminate their nuclear program by bombing Iran. The West cannot invade Iran and succeed with that goal. either. If you take Netanyahu and the neo-cons at their word, sanctions won't work.
So, it is not surprising that the deal's opponents offer NOTHING as an alternative.
Time will tell if the deal delivers on what it's supposed to do. Iran has been an implacable foe of the US (and vice-versa) for 36 years, and that isn't going to change overnight. But there is the real potential for a thaw in the hostile relations between our two countries, and this makes Israel and our (Sunni) Arab friends and enemies very uncomfortable. This deal also gives us a chance to take a look at the mess in the ME within a new paradigm. The old paradigm has not worked. It created a hole so deep that the region is at risk of never being able to crawl out of it.
While our traditional allies are understandably anxious, they've come by their anxiety honestly. And, if we take Einstein's definition of insanity being the belief that doing the same thing over and over again will give you a different result, then our allies and their friends in Congress are insane.
The most prominent arguments against the deal aren't really arguments at all. The people making them don't like the deal because they don't like Iran, and because the deal has some upside for Iran. That is, of course, the nature of deal-making. The chicken hawks don't want to come out and say they oppose diplomacy in all forms and simply want a war with Iran, so we get their reframing and bluster instead.
Peacemaking has risks. War also brings risk.
The one lesson Americans never ever seem to learn is probability assessment. Our politicians always lock into one factor they are sure will predict the future with certainty.
Well, it's time for them to grow up. If the Iran deal is a curtain, it is a deal that allows us a good amount of time to figure out what's behind the curtain.
Behind every curtain is another curtain, the future, and nobody knows what's back there. So, wake up Congress, debate the deal, but approve it.
Here to help wake them up is #3 in our songs of summer series, here is "Summertime" by Janis Joplin from 1969:
If your daddy's rich and your mama's good lookin', you better not cry.
If you read the Wrongologist in email, you can see the video here.
We live in an amazing time. Donald Trump is again running for President, and the Huffington Post has decided it will not cover his run, because they consider him to be a joke.
Yet, the Republican base is happy with Mr. Trump. WaPo reports that 57% of Republicans now have a favorable view of Trump, compared to 40% who have an unfavorable view. That is a complete reversal from a late-May Post-ABC poll, in which 65% of Republicans saw Trump unfavorably. The Donald has pushed some candidates polling numbers down to the point where it could affect their ability to raise money.
Since Trump is currently polling at the top of the big group of Republican presidential candidates, the media shouldn't assume his candidacy is a joke. They should be taking him seriously. Trump's approval numbers with Republicans is currently the biggest story in the political campaign, and the reasons why he's so popular deserves to be front and center.
He is the Cliff's Notes version of today's Republican Party.
What he is saying resonates with many in their base, which has been diligently cultivated and grown for the last 40 years. Now, their crop is coming in. Consider that Sen. Ted Cruz is only in his third year of his first term in office and Sen. Rand Paul is only in his fifth year. Except for Scott Walker, not one of them has a political record they can run on. The rest are bottom of the barrel careerist pols.
Once, we thought that no one could be lower in that barrel than Nixon. Then we had Reagan. And then, GWB. Hard to believe that the next Republican presidential candidate could be lower in the barrel than GWB, but if there is someone, the GOP will find him/her, and about 45% of the electorate will vote for him/her.
So, don't focus simply on the media's carping about Trump's comments on Mexicans, because 55+% of American Republicans agree with him.
Trump's bombast actually helps the others:
Pluto is clearer to us than the 2016 Super PACs:
Obama now has to deal with our domestic Ayatollahs about Iran:
Iran deal will never be good enough for some on the Right:
Harper Lee's book has startling revelation:
The Greek deal is mythic:
The Story Behind Iran's Nuclear Story
Reuters reported last night that Iran and major powers extended the deadline to negotiate an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program to at least Friday. The comprehensive deal under discussion is aimed at curbing, and reversing in some cases, Iran's nuclear work for the last decade or more, in exchange for relief from economic sanctions that have slashed Iran's oil exports and crippled its economy.
It is unclear whether an agreement will be reached, but it is sure that few in Congress will be happy with the outcome, regardless if there is an agreement or not.
It may be useful to remember that Iran's Nuclear Program was a child of Washington in the first place. It is possible to date the start of Iran's nuclear program to December 8, 1953, the date that President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered what was later called his Atoms for Peace speech to the UN.
Eisenhower laid out a program to use atomic energy "to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world." Under the program, the US would provide research reactors, fuel, and scientific training to developing countries eager to harness the power of the atom.
Among the first countries to take the United States up on its offer was Iran.
In 1957, Tehran and the US signed a nuclear cooperation agreement, called the Cooperation Concerning Civil Uses of Atoms. Two years later, in 1959, the Shah of Iran created a Nuclear Research Center at the University of Tehran, and in 1967, the US delivered a five-megawatt nuclear research reactor and the enriched uranium needed to fuel it. In addition, the Atoms for Peace program offered Iran a chance to study in the US, since they had no homegrown nuclear experts. This lack of nuclear engineers meant that Iran could not use the US-delivered Tehran research reactor for nearly a decade.
Needing nuclear experts, Iran turned to MIT in 1975 to create a special program to provide Iranian experts with scientific and technological training on nuclear energy. This program gave Iran its first group of professional nuclear engineers. The first nuclear reactor that we provided would later be used by Tehran to carry out some of its more controversial work, including some of the country's earliest experiments with uranium enrichment.
Iran later admitted to using that same reactor in the early 1990s for the production of small amounts of Polonium-210, a radioactive substance that could be used to start a chain reaction inside a nuclear weapon.
Iran signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in July 1968, on the first day it was opened for signature. Tehran ratified the treaty in 1970, putting it among the first states to do so and on paper, giving it the right to enrich uranium.
It is useful to remember that Israel, the most vocal critic of a nuclear deal with Iran, remains one of just four nuclear capable states (India, Pakistan and North Korea) that have not signed the NPT.
But despite early cooperation, signs of distrust between Washington and Tehran emerged early. Like today, Washington was concerned with Iranian plans to reprocess used ("spent") nuclear fuel. The separated plutonium from this process can be used to fuel reactors, but also can be used to make nuclear weapons. To make sure nuclear materials were not diverted to making weapons, Mr. Eisenhower proposed establishing a watchdog within the UN. That watchdog would later become the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that we rely on today for nuclear inspections.
Juan Cole reports that, according to declassified national security documents, from 1975 and 1976, Washington opposed Iranian plans to build a nuclear reprocessing facility, and the issue became a major sticking point in negotiations to sell US nuclear power reactors to Iran:
The US used to have a policy of promoting reprocessing because it was a way of recycling useful atoms…But this policy changed right at the end of the Gerald Ford administration and then reinforced by Jimmy Carter…to no longer support, and, in fact, to oppose reprocessing.
Washington's nuclear cooperation with Iran came to an abrupt halt in 1979, swept away by the Iranian Revolution that ended the rule of the Shah. With the capture of our embassy in Tehran and the holding of American hostages for 444 days, all formal ties between Washington and Tehran were cut off until the start of the current nuclear negotiations.
Atoms for Peace provided Iran with a foundation for its nuclear program. It offered both key technologies along with education in nuclear engineering and physics. The program clearly helped Iran move up the nuclear learning curve.
Now, the question is, can Secretary of State Kerry put the toothpaste back in the tube?


text:
Zimbabwe To Construction Of Three 250MW Solar Power Plants
Zimbabwe is set to construct three solar photovoltaic power plants with a total capacity of 250MW by independent producers at a cost of US $400m. According to the project leaders, the projects comes at a time when the country is in urgent need of adapting its electricity production to climate change
"We need to change the way electricity is produced. There are also advantages to using renewable energy, particularly in terms of revenue. We want to allow the country to make margins on energy imports and, better still, transform it into an energy exporter. Turning to renewable energies is the essential condition to curb the climatic disasters that are threatening the Africa's future," George Beukes, Executive Director of eXcess Africa.
The three solar plants will be installed in three Zimbabwean cities, Goromonzi, Bulawayo and Harare. The first two will each have a 100 MW capacity while the last one will have a capacity of 50 MW.
The system will be implemented in the coming months by the local company Guarantee Risk Solar, in collaboration with Bushveld Energy, a South African company. Despite the government's many efforts, Zimbabwe is still plagued by numerous power cuts. Interruptions can last up to 10 hours each day. These cuts are due to low water levels at the Kariba dam, the country's main electricity supplier.
Daily electricity demand is estimated at 2100 MW for a production of 969 MW, a low production capacity that remains under serious threat from drought and grid capacity and reliability problems. According to World Bank estimates, Zimbabwe's energy access rate was just 38 percent in 2016.
Tags: africa,	Zimbabwe

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Dog News Featured First Responders Good Samaritan Happy Ending Heroic Humans Icy Water Inspirational Dog Videos International Rescue Rescue Video Social Media Stuck Video Wow!
When a dog fell through the ice at this Vancouver park, this selfless onlooker didn't hesitate before marching in to save it.
A Canadian man was caught on camera plunging into a frozen pond to rescue his dog after the pet fell through the ice.
Passerby Emily Andrea Robertson had taken off her boots and was going to try to rescue Maggie herself, but decided firefighters had a better chance.
Though the teens didn't even have oars, they grabbed a canoe and rushed out onto the icy pond to save the drowning dog. Hopefully they earned a badge for this!


text: <!DOCTYPE html><meta charset="UTF-8">

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Cast members performing "The Marriage Test" at a local church.
In observation of National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, the Office of Outreach and Health Disparities in the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine will host a play that will help educate African-Americans about the importance of preventing colorectal cancer.
"We are hoping that by watching the play, the audience understands the importance and urgency of obtaining colorectal cancer screening in order to prevent and, if necessary, treat this disease at an early stage," said Dr. Maria Jibaja-Weiss, director of the Office of Outreach and Health Disparities at Baylor.
African-Americans are more affected by colorectal cancer compared to other ethnic and racial communities. They have the shortest survival rates and highest mortality for most cancers in the United States.
"The Marriage Test," written and directed by Thomas Meloncon tells the story of a family who has learned of a loved one being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The play shows how the family received the news and follows their journey of coping.
It will be presented Sunday, April 2, at 3 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church – Parish Hall, 4600 Reed Road Houston, Texas, 77051.
The play is free and open to the public. Attendees have the opportunity to win an Amazon Fire Tablet by participating in follow up surveys. Learn more about cancer prevention events.


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T-Mobile AT&T Verizon Sprint Samsung Android Google MWC2014
Samsung Galaxy S5 vs Nexus 5: first look
posted by Victor H. / Feb 24, 2014, 5:58 PM
Image: 1 of 3
The Samsung Galaxy S5, has just arrived, but - unlike before - this year, Samsung's new 'big thing' will be met with fierce competition from all places. First and foremost, from a device that's been the underdog earlier, a phone with much lower sales than the Samsung flagship, but still offering an unprecedented value for the money. We're talking about the Google Nexus 5, of course.
Luckily, we have the Nexus 5 with us at MWC, so we can give you some first-hand impressions of how it compares against the Galaxy S5. Read on to find out.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 surprised us, but not with a metal case as some expected - instead it shipped with a perforated dimply back with a soft touch feel. While it's not cutting any fashion and style edges, we actually like it for what it is - simple and practical, plus it allows the Galaxy S5 to keep the removable back cover with easily replaceable battery and microSD card.
The Nexus 5 also features a soft touch back, but one which is much more rubbery in feel and in contrast to the Galaxy S5 it is not user removable.
Both designs don't seem too pretentious, but we would not say that we are disappointed with either one. Neatly, Samsung has made the Galaxy S5 ruggedized with supports for the IP67 rating, which means that it can be immersed in water for up to an hour, and it's dust protected as well.
Interestingly, Google has expanded the Nexus 5 to include three different color versions now - a red, black and white one. Samsung has also gone the way of color, but it has four color options - a blue (our favorite), a gold, a black and a white one.
The Galaxy S5 introduces one brand new design component to smartphones and that's a heart rate sensor on the back, right below the camera. It's also got a swipe fingerprint reader in the home button. The Nexus 5 lacks both these features.
In terms of display, the Nexus 5 was a huge step up in display quality with a large, 5-inch 1080p display that is also very well calibrated, with accurate (just very slightly washed out) colors. The Galaxy S5 features almost equally sized 5.1-inch display with the same 1080 x 1920-pixel resolution.
Where the two differ are in the actual technology used. While the Nexus 5 employs the more traditional LCD technology, the S5 ships with a Super AMOLED screen. At that, Samsung claims some huge improvements and the screen on the S5 indeed seems to deliver. It's a bright and vivid screen that goes up to the luminant and outdoor-friendly 500 nits.
Speaking of interface, the time has finally come to see a Nexus and non-Nexus device both ship with the latest version of Android. Props to Google and Samsung! The Galaxy S5 runs on the same Android 4.4 KitKat as the Nexus 5, but while the LG-made Nexus runs it in its pure, stock form, the Galaxy S5 comes with a new TouchWiz custom user interface.
Samsung has gone for simpler, flatter, more modern icons, and it has tried to simplify it all with icons in the settings in lieu of long lists. It also has paid specific attention to its S Health app, which is now front and center as you can use the built-in heart rate sensor to measure whether you're working out hard enough or not.
Processor and memory
The Galaxy S5 is one of a few launch vehicles for the brand new Snapdragon 801 system chip. It's a quad-core chip just like the one in the Nexus 5, but while the number of cores is the same, they are clocked at slightly different speeds. The Galaxy S5 is, of course, slightly faster in both the CPU where it reaches 2.5GHz (2.3GHz on the Nexus 5) and in the GPU where the clock speed goes up to 578MHz.
In our experience with the two, both feel perfectly snappy and don't skip a beat. The Galaxy S5 moves smoothly through the menus and while it's hard to say just yet, it seems to be just a bit smoother than last year's S4. The difference in processing power should become obvious in high-demanding game, and it will make the S5 a bit more future-proof.
The Galaxy S5 comes with 16GB of internal storage for the basic model, but you can expand it via microSD cards of up to 64 gigs. The Nexus 5 ships also with 16GB of built-in storage, but it's got no microSD card slot support, so you cannot expand the storage.
The new 16-megapixel ISOCELL camera is one of the big highlights of Samsung's new flagship. It uses a 1/2.5" sensor, around 15% to 20% larger than the average sensor in top-level devices, and it also packs a new auto-focus system that is extremely fast, and Samsung claims is actually the fastest of any smartphone.
The Nexus 5 in comparison comes with an 8-megapixel camera with a smaller sensor, and on paper it seems humbler, but we would not rush with the conclusions just yet - we were actually pleasantly surprised with Nexus 5's snapper.
The Galaxy S5 also brings a new, improved camera interface that supports new shooting modes and adds HDR in video. The S5 also records 4K video at 30fps, something that the Nexus 5 is not capable of.
All in all, it's clear that Samsung has one-upped the Nexus 5 in almost every aspect except for one - price. Google's handset is sold at razor thin margins ($350 off contract), while the S5 should retail for no less than $600 off contract and $199 with a 2-year agreement. We're clearly talking about two very different price tiers.
Yet, ignoring money for a second, the Galaxy S5 seems to make significant process in the nascent field of personal smartphone-assisted fitness, in performance and in the camera. The fact that it's ruggedized and that it comes with an improved AMOLED display are also hugely appreciated. With both running on the latest Android, software is finally less of an issue, so in a fantasy world where price does not matter, we'd clearly go with the S5. What about you?
Sony Galaxy S5 vs Nexus 5: first look
View more + 8 images
$214.00 Samsung Galaxy S5 on Amazon
Samsung Galaxy S5 OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow, 5.1 Lollipop, 5.0 Lollipop, 4.4.4, 4.4.2 View Full specs
PhoneArena Rating:
Display 5.1" 1080 x 1920 pixels
Camera 16 MP / 2.1 MP front
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, Quad-core, 2500 MHz
Storage 32 GB + microSDXC
Battery 2800 mAh(21h 3G talk time)
Google Nexus 5 OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow, 5.1 Lollipop, 5.0 Lollipop, 4.4.4, 4.4.2, 4.4 View Full specs
Camera 8 MP / 1.3 MP front
Storage 32 GB
Battery 2300 mAh(17h talk time)
1. hurrycanger
Posts: 1775; Member since: Dec 01, 2013
Say "Ok Google" :)
posted on Feb 24, 2014, 6:09 PM	4
13. akki20892
Posts: 3902; Member since: Feb 04, 2013
My nexus look gorgeous.
15. hurrycanger
Both Nexus 4 and 5 look gorgeous. I actually referred to "Ok Google" built into the GS5's Touchwiz launcher though. :D
2. alaw.14
Posts: 431; Member since: Sep 10, 2013
both. The galaxy s5 is not actually a big disapointment
5. networkdood
Posts: 6330; Member since: Mar 31, 2010
no, it is not - just people go nuts over this stuff and media like P.A. perpetuate rumored stories, 24/7....I have to consider money, so that is foolish of P.A. to pretend otherwise...so, we shall call that a WHAT IF scenario, one that is impossible for me to accept...Nexus 5 is half the price, and I pretty sure it is at least 2/3 of the Samsung S5...both are good phones...well, at least we know the Nexus 5 is, and we ASSUME that the GALAXY phone is, also...
8. Shatter
Posts: 2036; Member since: May 29, 2013
There was nothing to expect. Phones are nearing where their going to plateau and only gradually get better each year like desktops and laptops instead of having more cpu cores and a lot more ghz you might see improved energy effiency + 10% performance increase at best after a few more years. 1080p is all thats needed for phones, their cpus are good enough to run games and OS with no slow down and the GPUs are good enough, much better than actually mobile consoles. People set their expectations to high with a 1440p screen, octa core exynos, 64bit, 128GB memory, etc.
exactly...lol, yeah, look up the coolpad 9976A - it in between a 1080p and 1440p screen with 8 cores..but not 64 bit...but, yeah, the Nexus 5 is a great device...I am even playing PSP games on it now, and the device does not slow down...
11. Nikolas.Oliver
Posts: 1574; Member since: Jul 01, 2012
for me it is, remember one of the samsung officials saying that they were starting from scratches as far as design is concerned? and we get this..
3. Arthurhkt
Posts: 727; Member since: Apr 19, 2012
Sony Galaxy S5..?
4. Mr.Mr.Upgrade
Posts: 474; Member since: Aug 30, 2011
That's strange my nexus5 runs 4.4.2 and the writer said s5 runs 4.4. Get new writers or at least people who do their homework , they giving anybody a pen and paper even the zoo animals
6. DRO_ID
Posts: 40; Member since: Feb 20, 2014
That S5 is a really big phone. Does the extra .2" really make a difference in what the consumer sees on the phone? I doubt it does, but the extra .2" really makes a big difference in making the phone bigger. LG seems to have the screen to phone size ratio right. Sony also missed the mark by making that almost perfect phone so huge.
wow, the new COOLPAD 9976A 7 inch phablet that I have on order is actually thinner than this phone...at 7.6mm...
the nexus 5 design looks more classy, but thats just me. btw, can't help but wonder, will samsung increase the size of their next flagship again? i mean, this is so huge,
Agree that's it's so huge. The Note series is the huge phone line of Samsung. The S series doesn't really have any reason to get huge. I really hoped it wouldn't get bigger than the S4. I don't want to be misunderstood though. I really like the S5 with the the new features and stuff. But yeah, it's huge. I own a Galaxy Mega 6.3" and a Galaxy Light 4". I love both. I find huge devices are good being huge, and small devices are good staying small. The S line should be in the middle, and it should just stay in the middle. I think the increase in size is there just to add another observable difference to the new flagship, which may push some people to upgrade to the S5.
12. Joshing4fun
Posts: 1253; Member since: Aug 13, 2010
Nexus 5 wins and it looks like itll be a strong competitor against all 2014 flagships.
16. Commentator
Well, I have no regrets for going with the Nexus 5.
17. R-vjn
Posts: 301; Member since: Jan 07, 2013
S5, being released now, with a 5.1'' display have a bigger size overall compared to the 7 months old LG G2 which even sports a bigger display. (frankly, the G2 and Nexus 5 stands its own against this Samsung 'S'-crewed 5) What S5 actually did was, they gave enough room for LG to make their this years flagship (The G3) with an even bigger display (5.2"+), but within the size of the S5.
18. AfterShock
Posts: 4147; Member since: Nov 02, 2012
I don't feel I'm missing out on anything. N5 user. Grate to those that score a S5 though,.. It is a beast.
19. Jishnusur
Posts: 175; Member since: Oct 07, 2013
You shouldn't even start comparing the two. Nexus 5 has some class..The other one is "No words for it".. The Nexus 5 is sooo much more premium. Period.
posted on Feb 24, 2014, 10:40 PM	0
20. towersofasia
Posts: 1; Member since: Feb 25, 2014
"All in all, it's clear that Samsung has one-upped the Nexus 5 in almost every aspect except for one - price." And design (S5 looks ugly and dated). And pure Android. And fast Nexus OS updates.
posted on Feb 25, 2014, 4:25 AM	0
21. Burnt-Yoghurt
Google say: "Okay everyone, this is how it's done!" All other manufacturers throughout the year scramble to return fire. That's the Nexus series in a nutshell.
22. google-apple
Posts: 34; Member since: Jul 19, 2013
Nexus Rocks... Sammy... Same old, same old... NO INNOVATIONS... not even in design...
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"R" you ready? Pixel 4 running the next Android developer preview is spotted
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text:
Q: Screen orientation to portrait and reverse portrait My app target 2.2 and later and want to support orientation only on portrait and reverse portrait.  and the problem is i can't declare

android:screenOrientation="reversePortrait"

in manifest as it is only available from api level 9.
How is it possible to do this by supporting android 2.2 and later.

A: According to this post,
How to detect exact orientation of device in Froyo?
it is not possible to use portrait mode with reversed API 8.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


First African American woman to graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1906). This pioneer became the first African American Dean of Girls in any Chicago high school (1920). First African American high school principal in Chicago - at Wendell Phillips Academy High School (1927). First African American to serve on the Board of Oral Examiners of Chicago, conducting principals\' examinations.


June, 19 2015, Moscow – IXcellerate, one of the leading Russian data centre operators, successfully organised an Open Doors day and a summer party for its partners and customers.
The event held outside creating an informal atmosphere and positive summer mood for all the guests.
The agenda included guided data centre tours, a series of news announcements and updates from IXcellerate and respective partners, as well as a packed entertainment program including a rock band!
With more than 100 representatives of leading Russian and International companies taking part, including our special guests and event sponsor HP – the event showcased Moscow One's development over the last 12 months and presented plans for the next 12.
Opening of the Phase 2, which tripled operational space, allowing a total allocation of 700 racks in two halls.
Development plans – Moscow One Data Centre is designed inside one building, development is planned in 4 modules: Phase 1 and Phase 2, which are ready and operational, Phase 3 and Phase 4 are currently under construction and are scheduled to launch in 2016–2017. Encompassing this expansion within the campus, will give a total area of 12000 sq. meters and power consumption levels of 14 MVA.
A special partner program for system integrators and cloud services providers, based on the principal of data centre neutrality.
Launching of Eurasia:Peering and its first partners – London Internet Exchange (LINX) and MSK-IX. The opening of this peering platform for traffic exchange greatly simplifies the connection procedure between operators (there are 23 providers on site) and also guarantees minimal delays of packet transmission.


Introduction: Anxieties about the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Nigeria are present both in general public and the surgical communities. Research on its effect on occupational health and safety is still evolving in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in a tertiary referral hospital from October to December 2016. Doctors working in all surgical subspecialties area were included in the study. Data were stored and analyzed using Analyze-it version 2.25 Excel 12+ (2013). Multivariate analysis to determine predictors of vulnerability toward HIV infection was carried out. P = 0.05 or less was considered statistically significant.
Results: Of the 95 questionnaires returned, 74 were fully completed making a response rate of 77.9%. Males preponderance was observed (66 [89.2%)]), while there were only 8 (10.8%) females (male:female = 8.3:1). The age ranged from 24 to 53 years (mean age = 36.9 years ± 8.2 standard deviation). More than half of the doctors, i.e. 49 (66.2%) had operated on a known HIV/AIDS-infected patient. There was no correlation between perception of HIV occupational hazard with age, gender, specialty, practice years, and cadre (χ2 = 15.73, df = 17, P = 0.543). Twenty-three surgeons (31.1%) sustained needlestick injuries in the past 1 year and 19 (82.6%) confirmed having at least two episodes. Four (17.4%) had received free postexposure prophylaxis.
Conclusion: The findings from this series suggested that the hospital adherence to universal cross infection control measures is suboptimal. It is necessary for hospital to promote minimal invasive surgery.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the concern and occupational vulnerability of HIV infection among doctors in surgical subspecialties at a tertiary referral hospital in North West Nigeria.
This was a cross-sectional study conducted at a tertiary referral hospital, Sokoto, from October to December 2016. The study population comprised doctors working in all surgical subspecialties (cardiothoracic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, general surgery, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology (O and G), ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, and otorhinolaryngology) in the study area.
A 23-item structured questionnaire containing open- and close-ended questions [Appendix 1] was self-administered to consenting participants. The questionnaire contained three parts that sought to assess the sociodemographic and professional characteristics of study participants and HIV screening and status as well as their vulnerability to HIV infection.
The questionnaires after retrieval were entered into Excel, and data analysis after cleaning was performed using Analyze-it version 2.25 Excel 12+ (2013). Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation (quantitative data) and counts and percentages (qualitative data) were made. Subsequently, inferential statistics were carried out to determine factors associated with vulnerability toward HIV infections. Multivariate analysis was conducted to determine predictors of vulnerability toward HIV infection. Statistical significance was drawn when P = 0.05 or less.
Ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the ethics committee of the institution. Informed verbal consent was also obtained from individual study participants.
This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2016. Of the 95 questionnaires returned, only 74 were fully completed making a response rate of 77.9%. Most of the respondents were males 66 (89.2%) while 8 (10.8%) were females (male:female = 8.3:1). The age of the respondents ranged from 24 to 53 years (mean age = 36.9 years ± 8.2 standard deviation) [Table 1]. The modal age group was 31–40 years (n = 26, 35.1%).
General surgery had the largest number of doctors, i.e. 22 (29.7%), followed by obstetrics and gynecology with 19 doctors (25.7%), oral and maxillofacial surgery had 8 doctors (10.8%), orthopedic surgery had 4 (5.4%), 7 otorhinolaryngology (9.5%), 4 neurosurgery (5.4%), urology 4, plastic surgery 3 (4.1%), 1 pediatric surgery (1.4%), and 1 cardiothoracic surgery (1.4%).
There were 26 (35.1%) consultants, 13 (17.6%) senior registrars, 13 (17.6%) registrars, 13 medical officers (17.6%), and 9 (12.2%) house officers. Most respondents, i.e. 27 (37.0%) had 5 years or less of practice and only 3 (4.1%) had practiced for over 20 years. Majority, i.e. 22 (29.7%) were in general surgery unit trailed by O and G 19 (25.7%) and only 1 (1.4%) each in cardiothoracic, orthopedic, and pediatric surgery.
More than half of the doctors, i.e. 49 (66.2%) had operated on a known HIV/AIDS-infected patient. Sixty-seven (90.5%) respondents had HIV screening in the past with over half 39 (58.2%) doing so voluntarily. Sixty-four (90.1%) concurred with routine preoperative HIV testing of patients, while 62 (83.8%) advocated HIV screening for surgeons if requested by patients or their caregivers.
Sixty-nine (93.2%) expressed their fears about occupational risk of HIV infection with half of the respondents (n = 37) having the perception that the risk of being infected with HIV in their surgical practice as very high. There was no correlation between perception of HIV occupational hazard with age, gender, specialty, practice years, and cadre (χ2 = 15.73, df = 17, P = 0.543).
Twenty-three surgeons (31.1%) sustained needlestick injuries in the past 1 year. Needlestick injuries were most common among O and G (n = 8, 34.8%), general surgeons (n = 6, 26.1%), Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (OMFS) (n = 3, 13.0%), and others (n = 6, 26.1%). One needlestick injury episode 4 (17.4%) was reported and 19 (82.6%) confirmed having at least 2 episodes. Four (17.4%) of the victims indicated that they had received free postexposure prophylaxis (PEP). Only 19 (26.4%) of the participants agreed that the hospital had a well-advertised postexposure [Table 2].
Only 2 (2.7%) respondents rated the hospital infection control measures as excellent. Fifty-nine (79.7%) of the respondents agreed that the hospital routinely employed adequate sterilization and disinfection of equipment/instruments [Table 2].
There was a high compliance with universal precautions such as use of facemasks (70, 94.6%), change of gloves in between patients (70, 94.6%), presurgical hand scrubbing with disinfectants (69, 93.2%), double gloving during surgery (67, 90.5%), and availability of dedicated containers for sharps and medical waste (62, 83.8%) [Table 2].
There was least observance of universal safety measures such as the use of staplers instead of sutures (7, 9.5%), disposable gown (15, 20.3%), impervious gown (28, 37.8%), and indirectly passing of instruments during surgeries (28, 37.8%) [Table 2].
HIV prevalence in Nigeria jumped from 1.8% to 4.6% in <2 decades with recent estimate of 3.6 million Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS., In Nigeria like several African states, the level of HIV among the population is abysmal with many surgical patients oblivious of their HIV status.,, It has been demonstrated that surgeons in Africa have approximately 4-fold risk of exposure to occupational HIV than other HCWs., Moreover, some stakeholders have considered it prudent to prevent HIV-positive surgeons from operating and performing invasive procedures.
Consultants formed the bulk of respondents (35.1%) in this research in harmony with previous findings from Owotade et al. (35.4%), Obalum et al. (100%), and Sowande et al. (100%). However, it diverged from earlier works by Adebamowo et al. (100%) and Obi et al. (69%) were resident doctors formed the bulk of the respondents.
A large part of our respondents (37%) were within 5 years of clinical practice suggesting that their attitude toward HIV and surgery can still be modified to the benefit of health service delivery improvement.
The result of this series demonstrated that more than half of the respondents (66.2%) had in the past operated on known HIV-positive patients in conformity with Owotade et al. (41.5%) from South West Nigeria. Most trainee surgeons (65%) in a prior study expressed inadequate training in management of patients with HIV. Dearth of education, training, and availability of basic universal safety/protection materials were identified as barriers to proper treatment of People Living With HIV/ AIDS (PLWHA).,,, Targeted HIV/AIDS training backed by availability of needed items would boost the number of surgeons attending to patients with HIV/AIDS infection.
The findings from this series suggested that surgical practices are suboptimal and at variance with global accepted practices of universal cross infection control measures.,,,,, In the current study, appreciable performances in vital areas such as sterilization, hand scrubbing, availability of facemasks, face shield, double gloving, change of glove between patients' prophylactic antibiotics, and dedicated waste containers for sharps was observed. However, there was abysmal observance of measures such as use of staplers instead of sutures (9.5%), disposable gown (20.3%), impervious gown (37.8%), and indirectly passing of instruments during surgeries (37.8%). Some past studies demonstrated that most accidental needlestick injury occurred during suturing, intramuscular, or dental injections and disposal of used consumables, especially syringes and needles.,, Isah et al. observed that lack of stringent institutional framework on adherence to universal safety measures in Nigerian public health facilities, persistent shortage of essential supplies, and poor organizational climates contributed to this scenario, thereby endangering the safety of the patients and health personnel likewise.
Our findings demonstrated that to limit exposure to bloodborne pathogens, it is necessary for surgeons to rigorously embrace universal safety precautions, advocate minimal invasive surgeries, and adopt careful surgical techniques. Moreover, the hospital should invest more in technologies that will support minimal invasive techniques such as harmonic knives, endoscopes, ultrasound, robotic surgery, and others. In addition, they should proactively setup a dedicated occupational health and safety department that would facilitate regular implementation, monitoring and evaluation of these measures, and documentation of occupational percutaneous injuries coupled with PEP uptake. Finally, regulatory bodies entrusted with these responsibilities, especially at state level should bring to book erring health facilities.
Awosan KJ, Ibrahim MT, Arisegi SA, Erhiano EE. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS, risk perception, sexual lifestyle and condom use among drivers in Sokoto, Nigeria. J Infect Dis Immun 2014;6:19-25.
Adebamowo CA, Ezeome ER, Ajuwon JA, Ogundiran TO. Survey of the knowledge, attitude and practice of Nigerian surgery trainees to HIV-infected persons and AIDS patients. BMC Surg 2002;2:7.
Bowa K, Kawimbe B, Mugala D, Musowoya D, Makupe A, Njobvu M, et al. Areview of HIV and surgery in Africa. Open AIDS J 2016;10:16-23.
Labib M. Scalpel-free surgery could reduce surgeons' risk of HIV and hepatitis. Med J Zambia 2010;37:99-103.
Sowande OA, Talabi A, Olowookere S, Adejuyigbe, Owotade F. HIV/AIDS pandemic and current practice among paediatric surgeons in Nigeria. Afr J Med Med Sci 2015;44:297-302.
Isah HO, Sabitu K, Ibrahim MT. Profile of institutional infrastructure for implementing universal precautions in primary health care facilities in Sokoto state, Nigeria: Implication for occupational safety. Afr J Cln Exper Microbiol 2009;10:164-74.
Tanner J, Parkinson H. Double gloving to reduce surgical cross-infection. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2002;3:CD003087.
Owotade FJ, Ogunbodede EO, Sowande OA. HIV/AIDS pandemic and surgical practice in a Nigerian teaching hospital. Trop Doct 2003;33:228-31.
Umar AS, Oche MO, Adeoso AA. Discriminatory practices of health workers towards people living with HIV/AIDS in Sokoto, Nigeria. J AIDS HIV Res 2012;4:223-8.
Consten EC, van Lanschot JJ, Henny PC, Tinnemans JG, van der Meer JT. A prospective study on the risk of exposure to HIV during surgery in Zambia. AIDS 1995;9:585-8.
Gumodoka B, Favot I, Berege ZA, Dolmans WM. Occupational exposure to the risk of HIV infection among health care workers in Mwanza region, united republic of Tanzania. Bull World Health Organ 1997;75:133-40.
Obalum DC, Eyesan SU, Ogo CN, Enweani UN, Ajoku JO. Concerns, attitudes, and practices of orthopaedic surgeons towards management of patients with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. Int Orthop 2009;33:851-4.
Obi SN, Waboso P, Ozumba BC. HIV/AIDS: Occupational risk, attitude and behaviour of surgeons in Southeast Nigeria. Int J STD AIDS 2005;16:370-3.
Sheikh K, Porter JD. "It's 100% for me": Hospital practitioners' perspectives on mandatory HIV testing. Indian J Med Ethics 2009;6:132-7.
Orji EO, Ogunniyi SO. The case against mandatory preoperative HIV screening in Africa. Niger J Med 2001;10:162-4.
Mponela MJ, Oleribe OO, Abade A, Kwesigabo G. Post exposure prophylaxis following occupational exposure to HIV: A survey of health care workers in Mbeya, Tanzania, 2009-2010. Pan Afr Med J 2015;21:32.
Gabriel J. Reducing needlestick and sharps injuries among healthcare workers. Nurs Stand 2009;23:41-4.


In this era of "faith-based initiatives," congregations increasingly find themselves in the business of establishing and supporting community ministries-daycare for infants and toddlers, respite care for elders, and programs for housing rehab and home repair, tutoring, and social justice advocacy. In this volume, Carl S. Dudley revises and updates his earlier book, Basic Steps toward Community Ministry, which Loren Mead called "the most valuable book on parish ministry I've seen in a decade."
Carl S. Dudley is codirector of the Center for Social and Religious Research and professor of church and community at Hartford Seminary. He is author of numerous books, including "Studying Congregations", and has been a pastor in metropolitan and cross-cultural congregations.


Vacancy Centre - CLOSED We currently have no vacancies open on the Leadership or Operations teams. You can register an interest below, and you will be considered when a position arises.
vEXS is an exceptional virtual airline and I am proud to be part of this community. Through vEXS, ever since I joined in March 2017, I have established many great and strong friendships with the people around me (many with the forename Jack). I enjoy my role as Operations Assistant as I get to socialise with, and meet amazing people on a daily basis, all with a common interest - flight simulation.
You can register your interest in becoming a team member at vEXS. Use the button to the side and register your interest to Eric Liu, the Operations Manager.


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text:
Newsweek Ruling Offers Copyright Lessons On New Tech
On March 21, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a decision in McGucken v. Newsweek LLC about whether Newsweek infringed a photographer's copyright by embedding his Instagram photo in an online news article.
In denying both parties' cross-motions for summary judgment, the federal court rejected the news magazine's server test defense, finding that the publication could still be liable for unauthorized display of the photograph even if it never stored the plaintiff's image on its own computers.
The court further held that neither party was entitled to summary judgment on the issue of whether Newsweek's posting was protected by fair use, nor on whether, by virtue of Instagram's then-extant terms of use, McGucken had given Instagram the right to sublicense his content for use by other Instagram users, such as the defendant.
The decision adds to a growing line of cases that reject the server test, on which online publishers have commonly relied to avoid copyright liability since it was established 15 years ago by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the 2007 Perfect 10 Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc. decision.
The court's decision has implications for online publishers and content creators, from both litigation risk and transactional perspectives.
In March 2019, fine art photographer Elliot McGucken photographed a rare ephemeral lake during his visit to Death Valley National Park and shared the photo on his public Instagram account. Also in March, Newsweek published an article on its website about the phenomenon of ephemeral lakes in Death Valley. Although McGucken is quoted in the article, the fine art photographer did not, according to court documents, respond to Newsweek's request asking for permission to use his photo.
Newsweek subsequently embedded McGucken's Instagram post of the photo without his permission: meaning that readers could see the entire Instagram post, linking back to McGucken's Instagram, in the body of the article.
After some apparently unsuccessful attempts by his counsel to email Newsweek a ceaseand-desist letter, McGucken sued for infringement, alleging unauthorized reproduction and display of his photo.
How Embedded Linking Differs From Hosting Content
Understanding the debate around embedding content requires some basic knowledge of how embedding differs from its alternative — direct hosting of online content. A website or other internet-based service hosts content stored in files on the organization's servers. So, a webpage containing images hosted by a company will contain HTML code that directs a visitor's browser to retrieve the image files directly from the company's server. This is called hosting.
Alternatively, a website may provide a visitor with a link to content that is not hosted on the organization's servers, but is stored on servers owned by someone else. In its simplest form, the link will be visible to the user, the user will click on the link, and the user's browser will open the third-party webpage housing the pertinent content.
Also known as inline linking, embedding allows a website to provide visitors with access to content hosted on third-party webpages and servers without noticeably navigating away to these third-party sources.
This is achieved via HTML code on the primary webpage that directs visitors' browsers to operate in the background to retrieve the content from its third-party location and to embed the content as part of the primary webpage's overall display.
Rejecting the Server Test
In McGucken, Newsweek embedded the image rather than host it on its website. For the purposes of copyright infringement, the hosting would indisputably constitute display of McGucken's work. But as to embedding, the server test dictates that a website does not display a copy of a work if it does not communicate the work to viewers from an image file stored on its own servers.
Thus, Newsweek argued that embedding McGucken's Instagram photo did not count as displaying his photo because the photo wasn't stored on Newsweek servers.
Instead, Newsweek claimed that it had merely provided HTML directions to the Instagram post, and that it was Instagram that actually showed the copy of the plaintiff's work, writing in its reply:
The use of embed code, which is not a 'copy' capable of containing a copyrighted work, is not a public display but merely instructions on how to find the content, the same way it would not be a public display to provide someone with directions for how to see an artwork by Marc Chagall on display on the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.1
Recognizing that "the server test has not been widely adopted outside of the Ninth Circuit," the McGucken court found that Newsweek did publicly display McGucken's photo. The court noted that the Copyright Act defines "'display' as 'to show a copy of' a work" and "not 'to make and then show a copy of the copyrighted work.'"
The court cited the July 30, 2021, Nicklen v. Sinclair Broad Group Inc.2 decision, also in the Southern District of New York, pointing to the Copyright Act's definition of the display right as to "show a copy of it, either directly or by means of a film, slide, television image, or any other device or process" including processes "now known or later developed."3
It also emphasized the legislative history of the Copyright Act, indicating that Congress did not intend to freeze the scope of copyrightable protection to then-existing methods of expression, and that the definition of "display" was intended to encompass any method of transmitting an image from one place to members of the public elsewhere.
In addition, the court characterized the server test as out of touch with the Copyright Act's purpose, particularly in the context of today's online landscape. It highlighted the practical effect of the server test for artists on the internet:
Under the server test, 'a photographer who promotes his work on Instagram … surrenders control over how, when, and by whom their work is subsequently shown — reducing the display right, effectively, to the limited right of first publication that the Copyright Act of 1976 rejects.4
Based on the above, the court concluded that Newsweek did in fact display the plaintiff's photograph when it embedded the Instagram post into its article, and therefore denied Newsweek's motion for summary judgment on that basis.
Sending License and Fair Use Defenses to the Jury
Having agreed with McGucken that Newsweek's use of the embedding feature constituted a display under the Copyright Act, the court then considered arguments that:
Newsweek should not be liable for infringement because it had been granted a valid license to use McGucken's copyrighted work — not by McGucken, but by Instagram; and
Newsweek's posting was protected as a fair use.
The court declined both parties' motions on these defenses, finding that issues of fact would allow a reasonable jury to rule in either party's favor on both.
Regarding the licensing defense, according to the court, Instagram's terms of use "unequivocally grant Instagram a license to sublicense Plaintiff's publicly posted content." However, the parties disagreed about whether, by its terms and policies, Instagram also exercised that license — i.e., whether it granted a sublicense to Newsweek to use other users' publicly posted content.
The court cited language in Instagram's platform policy stating that the content Instagram users upload to the platform is "'owned by users and not by Instagram,' and that '[a]ll rights not expressly granted to you are reserved by Instagram.'"
Additional language within the platform policy indicated that users represent and warrant that they have obtained the necessary consents, authorizations and the like to display the content they post. The court concluded that Instagram's multipart terms of use were ambiguous — "muddying the waters as to precisely what a user of Instagram may do with user content on the Platform, and under what circumstances" — and did not answer the question clearly enough to permit summary judgment.
Newsweek further argued that even if Instagram did not expressly grant it a license to use McGucken's work, a license could be implied by factors such as the ease with which Instagram allows users to embed other users' content and the company's public statements. Once again, the court found that a jury would have to make that call.
Notably, after the events giving rise to the McGucken lawsuit, Meta — Instagram's parent — changed its policies to make clear that it grants a license "only to the extent permitted in these Terms," including a requirement that the embedder "obtain (and represent that you own or have secured) all rights necessary from all applicable rights holders to … display… content."
Likewise, the Ars Techinca website reported in June 20205 that Instagram does not grant such a sublicense to users, per an email to the news site from a spokesperson. In McGucken, these revised terms and public statement were "irrelevant to the parties' understanding at the time the relevant conduct occurred," because they happened well after the publication of the Newsweek article.
As for fair use, the court examined each of the fair use defenses and found points in both parties' favor. It acknowledged, for example, the plaintiff's argument that the use of the photograph was not transformative because it was used "primarily as an illustrative aid depicting the subject of the Article," and that "the mere addition of some token commentary is not enough to transform the use of a photograph when that photograph is not itself the focus of the article."
At the same time, the court agreed that in some instances the use of a photograph in an article could be transformative where the central subject of the article was the existence of, and commentary on, the photograph.
The court also gave credence to Newsweek's argument that its use of the Instagram post did not harm the plaintiff's market for his fine art photography because the cropped, lowerresolution version would not serve as a market substitute and because the plaintiff only posted his photograph on Instagram to "share his art and drum up interest in his fine art photography."
The court held that the fair use factors could only be resolved by "fact-intensive balancing," concluding that even though the underlying facts on each side may not be in dispute "the appropriate balance of the considerations is itself a factual question that is not … appropriately made on summary judgment."
Insights and Conclusion
The fate of the server test has been uncertain since 2018, when the first decision within the Southern District of New York refused to apply it to embedded content in the 2018 Goldman v. Breitbart News Network LLC6 holding. However, Goldman and other prominent New York cases involving the server test have since settled, making their final outcomes unappealable.
With McGucken continuing to proceed along the path to jury trial, if the case is not resolved, the Second Circuit may have its first opportunity to reject the server test. If it were to do so, this would create a circuit split that could eventually get the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the meantime, this decision gives online publishers yet another signal to beware of relying on the "server test" to embed content without copyright owners' permission. More broadly, McGucken highlights important nuances in how the law interacts with online platforms' evolving norms and standards around the technology of embedding.
For example, while the McGucken court found Instagram's 2020 statement about sublicensing irrelevant to the parties' understanding in this lawsuit, Instagram's statement could make it harder for future defendants to argue that a license can be implied from Instagram's conduct. Changes in the social network's terms of use may also impact future cases differently.
Additionally, Instagram recently introduced a new feature allowing users to disable the embedding feature for photos they post, adding a new wrinkle to the McGucken's court admonition that the server test forces photographers who post on Instagram to surrender control over how their photos are subsequently shown. Changes like these may give rise to both new legal arguments and practical consequences, which online publishers should consider in tandem as they contemplate potential legal liability.
The court's handling of the fair use defense also causes pause. The application of the multifactor fair use defense is notoriously difficult to parse, with many of the four statutory fair-use factors containing subfactors that can point in different directions. The court's conclusion that the balancing of various factors can itself be an issue of fact may make it more difficult for litigants to resolve the fair use defense before trial.
For transactional attorneys, there are a number of lessons to be learned here. First, a separately negotiated license from McGucken would have avoided the entire dispute.
As U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Fallia of the Southern District of New York recognized, "Ownership of a valid license to use a copyrighted work is generally a defense to copyright infringement." Given the unpredictability and expense of litigating the fair use defense, it can be preferable to obtain a direct license if one can be readily secured.
If a user of social media content decides to obtain a direct license, it is critical to conduct diligence to ensure that the proper license is being obtained and from the actual rights holder or its authorized representative. In this case, it was undisputed that McGucken held the copyright in the photo, but in many cases ownership is not as clear. Social media users often post content that does not belong to them or that depicts individuals other than the user — indeed, that was exactly what happened in Goldman, where the person who posted the image in question was not the same as the person who owned its copyright.
Therefore, it is prudent to confirm the identity of the owner of the copyright in the image, to verify that appropriate releases have been obtained from any individuals, and to make sure that the owner has not granted any conflicting rights to third parties. It also is important to determine the relevant license parameters to make sure that the license allows for the desired uses of the content.
Finally, for operators of websites, mobile apps, nonfungible token (or NFT) exchanges, and other Web 3.0 businesses, it is paramount to ensure that terms of use, privacy policies, and related terms and conditions use clear and unambiguous language and that all related provisions and documents work together as a seamless whole. Much of the ambiguity in McGucken arose due to differences in the language used in the terms of use vs. the platform policy.
That level of ambiguity is usually not desirable from either the platform operator's or user's perspective. For platforms that are not as established as Instagram, ambiguity of this nature can act as an impediment to widespread adoption.
And for platforms lucky enough to explode in popularity, ambiguity in the governing terms can later wreak havoc on users. This phenomenon is occurring now with various NFT offerings. The terms of many NFTs are unclear as to the extent to which the owners of those NFTs can exercise copyright rights in artwork that may be associated with them.
In sum, McGucken illustrates a common refrain in copyright infringement actions based on new technology — just because users are able to use the technology to interact with someone else's intellectual property, it does not mean that copyright law will approve of them doing so in all cases.
Until the server test debate is resolved, publishers and users should exercise care in their use of the embedding function, particularly as social media platforms like Instagram continue to update their features and terms.
Furthermore, relying on the fair use defense may be especially risky in light of McGucken's reluctance to resolve fair use at summary judgment unless all fair use factors "clearly favor one party."
To minimize risk, publishers should conduct careful legal review and, where appropriate, consider negotiating
By Arnold & Porter |2022-04-11T14:50:52+00:00 Jan 26, 2023
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text:
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                    Formulário de Modelo SMS

                    <form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" class="form-horizontal">

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                                                <input type="text" id="title" [(ngModel)]="message.title" name="title" class="form-control" placeholder="Insira um título bem descritivo">

                                            Corpo da mensagem

                                                <textarea type="text" [(ngModel)]="message.body" id="body" name="body" rows="5" class="form-control" placeholder="Escreva a mensagem aqui!"></textarea>

                    </form>

                    <button (click)="onSubmit()" type="submit" class="btn btn-sm btn-success">
                         Cadastrar!</button>
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                         Resetar</button>

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Você pode usar os termos:

                            "@nome", "@sobrenome", "@cidade",
                            "@tipo" ou "@fator"

para substiuir características de cada doador na hora do envio das mensagens e construir textos personalizados!


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Q: How to link a 3rd party library in linux for qml project How do i link a 3rd party library in Qt Creator for a Qt Quick UI application.
I have library files built in linux(.so)
Thanks in advance

A: Your should create "Qt Quick Application *" project and .pro file should look like:
QT += core quick gui network
TEMPLATE = app
HEADERS += some .h files
SOURCES += some .cpp files
INCLUDEPATH += ../include
OTHER_FILES += *.qml #or path to qml files
LIBS += -lprotobuf  # list of Libs, which you wish