Our hearts are broken over the tragedy in Boston yesterday. Our family sends our sincerest condolences to all of those who have been affected by this terrible situation. We especially would like to send a message to the family of eight-year-old Martin Richard. We have come to understand that the peace sign that Martin is holding in a photo being circulated throughout the media was created in response to a lesson by his teacher about the death of our son. From our family to yours, we are praying for you, thinking about you and will remember your son for the rest of our lives.
Martin Richard came to the Boston Marathon to cheer on his father who was running in the race. The boy's mother faced severe injuries to her brain and underwent surgery and his sister lost a leg.
Lu Lingzi, a Boston University student, and Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager, were identified as the two other deaths in the explosions.
President Obama traveled to Boston Thursday to participate in an interfaith service honoring the more than 170 people wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings.


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I'm in the process of presenting three workshops over here in Europe on the efficacy of Japanese acupuncture in the treatment of immune disorders. We might primarily consider immune disorders such as glandular fever or mononucleosis. We will be looking at acupuncture treatment for colds and flu, hopefully preventing the excessive use of antibiotics. Also in Australia I have been using acupuncture to successfully treat patients who have been suffering from Ross River Fever and Barmah Forest virus.
This weekend I am presenting a workshop in Verona. There will be a mix of people attending the workshop, but primarily doctors as a result of legislation here in Italy stipulating that only medical practitioners are allowed to practise acupuncture here in Italy. So this should be a very interesting exercise for me and something I am looking forward to greatly.
The following weekend, I will be flying north to the Czech Republic and I will be presenting another similar topic, obviously I will be focusing on the practise of acupuncture and also a brother or sister practise that we call moxibustion. There will be a majority of doctors there and I am expecting around about 40 medical practitioners at that particular workshop. This will be the fourth time I have been training acupuncturists in Prague (and only my first time in Italy). I am really looking forward to it. It should be a great experience judging by my previous visits.
I will then be flying down to Lisbon In Portugal and then travelling 40 minutes north of Lisbon to a beautiful town called Mafra , north of Sintra — the site of the National Palace in Portugal. I will be in residence in the retreat facility there and I will be presenting an acupuncture workshop to around about 20 to 25 lay practitioners of acupuncture. There may be one or two medical practitioners but primarily I will be working with lay practitioners there. I will be introducing them to the very gentle, and extremely effective practice (in my experience) of Japanese acupuncture for the treatment of immune system problems.
It really is a great privilege for me to be able to travel the world and to teach some of the skills that have been passed on to me. Also it's a privilege to be able to share some of the depth of clinical experience that I have accumulated over the last 30 years in training acupuncturists who are committed and passionate and to assist people to recover from, in some cases, very serious health problems that have failed to respond to treatment by orthodox medicine.
So if you are suffering from any form of immune system problem, please feel free to draw on our extensive experience by visiting our acupuncture clinic in Woolloongabba, Brisbane or our clinic on the Gold Coast.


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Power Generation: Renewable adoption is strong but plenty of challenges remain
Renewable energy is on the agenda of most governments worldwide. In 2018 it is now much more viable a prospect when compared to conventional sources and the vast majority of countries have made significant voluntary pledges through the Paris Climate Agreement to dramatically increase their percentage of renewable energy production. Wind, solar and hydro sources are doing the majority of the work and are applied according to the specific climate and geography of the country deploying it. However, some technologies are advancing as quickly as they can and the world currently relies more on hydro than any other resource, which can have dramatic environmental implications. Furthermore, both wind and solar have their own environmental implications that need to be taken into consideration.
- Being boosted by a strong solar PV market and good wind growth, renewables accounted for almost two-thirds of net new power capacity around the world in 2016, with almost 165 gigawatts coming online and annual growth of around 8%. Due to the rapid manufacturing and government subsidies in China, Solar is providing the majority of new growth within the renewables market because in the last few years it has become a very attractive replacement for old technologies that are going offline, due to new low costs and better technology. Overall though, solar represents a very small portion of renewables globally and technologies such as wind and hydro are much more prominent in the energy mix.
- For the world's biggest tech firms, securing an environmentally friendly image is crucial to their business plans. As a result many big firms have made significant commitments to use only renewable energy sourced electricity for their facilities and data centers. This comes after a number of campaigns from organizations like Greenpeace that pointed out that data centers require enormous amounts of energy, which in the past was being fulfilled by conventional energy sources.
- Whilst solar technology attracts a great deal of attention in the media, of the main renewable variants hydroelectric is by far the largest provider of electricity at present globally, representing around 65% of all renewable energy production. Its popularity comes from the consistent and high capacity electricity that hydroelectric dams can deliver. For instance the world's very largest off shore windfarm when finished in 2020 will have a potential capacity of 1.2GW and represents the biggest and most modern wind technology project
- Examine what's happening in the power generation industry at present.
- See how different technologies are adapting to a new business environment.
- Learn which energy generation technologies are the strongest at present and the best option for countries.
- Analyse the big trends in the industry and the players capitalising on them.
- What is happening in the power generation industry?
- What are the most important new technologies?
- Which countries are pushing new developments?
- What power sources are most attractive at present?
- How can countries meet their carbon emissions targets?
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Al-Qa'ida's August Surprise?
Posted: August 6, 2013 in Royal United Services Institute
Tags: Al Qaeda, AQAP, counter-terrorism, terrorism, UK, US, Yemen
Been quiet for a few weeks as I try to crack on with some much longer and larger writing commitments. They should land eventually and cover a few issues I look at. In the meantime, however, I have been doing a bit around the current threat pulse that is passing through the system. I did a few media bits, including a longer interview for ITN that was used by the Telegraph. Below is my contribution to the conversation from the yesterday for my institutional home, RUSI. More on this story as it emerges.
RUSI Analysis, 5 Aug 2013
By Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Research Fellow
US officials are speaking of a level of terrorist chatter as high as that prior to 11 September 2001. With Embassy closures across the Muslim world, large-scale prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, the threat tempo is rising. Is Al-Qa'ida planning an August surprise?
The weekend announcement by the American government that nineteen embassies should remain closed through the next week, alongside a travel advisory for US citizens travelling in the region, seems to emanate from a threat linked to Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Coming hot on the heels of a series of large-scale prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, the fear is that this is part of some co-ordinated effort. The reality is probably far more complicated than this, with the larger point being that the threat from Al-Qa'ida affiliated and associated terrorism continues to be a major concern.
The Threat from Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula
The first aspect to focus on is the danger from Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the driver of the threat reporting this past weekend. It seems to be focused on Sana'a in particular, with American, British, French, and German embassies all electing to close in Yemen last weekend. This was extended for the US, UK and German Embassies at least through Eid at the end of the week. French Foreign Minister Fabius announced the French mission would reopen Wednesday. Beyond this, the US closed a further twenty embassies across the Muslim world, while Canada decided to close its in Dhaka, Bangladesh – all relating to the same stream of threat reporting.
The level of specificity around the threat suggests that intelligence agencies have intercepted something particular, but the link to AQAP is not surprising. It is just over two weeks since Transport Security Administration (TSA) Administrator John Pistole confirmed a story that had been circulating for some time that AQAP master bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri had managed to successfully train a number of students. This knowledge transfer was seen as particularly dangerous given that al-Asiri has been responsible for a number of cunning devices that were able to penetrate airport security – Umar 'underpants bomber' Farouk Abdulmutallab, the dual printer bombs that were intercepted in Dubai and the UK while en route to the US, and the 'underpants 2' bomb that was handed over to authorities by an agent that had penetrated AQAP. In addition, we have seen a growing volume of drone strikes in Yemen in the past few weeks withthree in quick succession since July 28, suggesting a growing focus by US intelligence.
A year has now passed since a bomb with al-Asiri's touch had been publicly detected, but he remains on the loose and eager to strike the US. Most recently, there has been a particular tempo of threat warnings from Al-Qa'ida in particular with leader Ayman al Zawahiri vowing to 'spare no effort' to free the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, whilst also condemning the use of drones. Guantanamo has a particular resonance with the leadership of AQAP, with recently deceased senior member Saaed al Shirhi having spent time in the jail before being released in 2007. His death by drone was recently confirmed by Ibrahim al Rubaish, another senior AQAP member who had been in Guantanamo. The group vowed to avenge his death. AQAP leader Nasir al Wuhaishi, a former confidant of Osama bin Laden is reported to have been promoted to a senior role within the global Al-Qa'idaorganisation. The close links between what is left of Al-Qa'ida core in Waziristan and AQAP in Yemen, its technical capabilities, as well as its ability to control pieces of territory in Yemen, all point to it being one of the most dangerous of the Al-Qa'ida affiliates in terms of wanting and being able to launch attacks in the West.
As Al-Qa'ida-Core Fades, Al-Qa'ida Affiliates Consolidate
All of this comes in parallel to the large-scale prison breaks that we have seen in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan. The exact implications of the Libya break-out is unclear. But in Iraq and Pakistan the hand of Al-Qa'ida linked groups can be seen. In Pakistan, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) demonstrated an ability to once again launch targeted operations with relative impunity in Pakistan – this time leading to the release of some 250 prisoners. It is unclear whether any of them were particularly high value targets, but doubtless the influx of people will be a boost to the organisation's capabilities regionally.
The Iraqi break seems far more alarming, especially given the reporting that a number of individuals of high concern have escaped. This comes as the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham (ISIS, the Iraqi affiliate of Al-Qa'ida that has spread its wings deep into Syria), the group that claimed responsibility for the prison break, demonstrates an increasing ability on the field in Syria, while the death toll in Iraq last month is creeping up to the levels of the brutal insurgency of a few years ago. The almost 1,000 killed in the past month is a five year high. The influx of hardened fighters in the wake of the prison break will only further bolster its capabilities and raise the potential risk of the group launching attacks against targets in the broader region.
And atop this, we have seen a growing tempo of violence from the long brewing insurgency in the Egyptian Sinai and an open question hanging over what will happen now that the military has deposed the Muslim Brotherhood leadership. Tunisia, the cradle of the Arab Spring, has seen gradually escalating violence and instability with targeted political assassinations, a number ofdeadly clashes between militants and authorities, and a man blowing himself up by accident in the capital while preparing a device. A recent report on foreign fighters being drawn to the battlefield in Syria highlighted the fact that in the dataset examined by the authors of death notices posted by groups, Tunisians accounted for the second-most number of foreign nationals killed at the front. This is a surprising evolution, further suggesting that jihadi fervor is strong in the country. And across North and West Africa, brewing hotspots and roving networks continue to launch sporadic attacks. In Somalia, a group that had largely been counted out, al-Shabaab, continues to be able to function with a relatively regular flow of incidents attributed to the group.
It seems, therefore, that there are many facets to this complicated threat picture, but it is not clear as to the degree to which all of these are connected. Even in the cases where there are clear and known links between the groups, it is not certain that all of these activities can be seen as part of a campaign.
Instead, a conclusion that can be drawn is the fact that some terrorist groups abroad are growing in strength and capability. At the moment, they remain relatively disparate with occasional links and connections though the co-ordination and global drive that used to underline Al-Qa'ida seems to have gone. But the connections cannot be completely discounted – in particular with AQAP – and the unifying impact of the conflict in Syria may yet bring some coherence back to the group.
There is a longer-term concern here. The more groups are able to consolidate their hold on pieces of territory, replenish their ranks through prison breaks and gain greater experience on the battlefield, the more experience and capability they develop. At the moment this seems something that is of greater regional than international concern, but the worry remains that eventually they might decide to live up to their international aspirations and rhetoric. Alternatively, individuals or groups with global ambition or anti-Western views might use these groups as a springboard to launch attacks against the West, drawing on their replenished capacity to attack.
Al-Qa'ida may now be a shadow of its former self, but the ideology and, more importantly, the affiliates it helped nurture remain. As they benefit from the chaos stirred by the Arab Spring, the long tail left after the 11 September, 2001 attacks gets longer. Countering terrorism overseas is clearly going to be key for Western policymakers for the next few years
Boston Bombers Highlight Difficulties of Countering Isolated Terror Cells
Posted: May 27, 2013 in Royal United Services Institute
Tags: chechnya, counter-radicalization, counter-terrorism, lone wolves, terrorism, US
Finally catching up on some old posting – this is a second piece I wrote for my new Institute RUSI.
RUSI Analysis, 24 Apr 2013
As motives and operational set-up of the Boston bombers become known, urgent questions will be asked about how US intelligence agencies are prioritising threats in the United States. The case reveals the huge dilemma faced in collecting, evaluating and acting on credible intelligence leads.
We do not yet know with absolute clarity what motivated the Boston bombers, who last week so dramatically caught the public's attention. It also remains unclear the extent to which the two may or may not have been connected to international terrorist networks. What is clear, however, is the danger that such small and disconnected terrorist cells pose and the difficulties that security services face in countering them.
Questions are now being asked about the degree to which the Boston brothers' were connected or directed by any outside forces. Their Chechen heritage, recent travels to the restive Dagestan part of Russia and their online footprint showing an interest in Chechen jihadism all point to a possible link through the northern Caucasus to international jihadi networks. The fact that Russia appears to have flagged their concerns on older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the FBI suggests that there may have been more to this connection than simple coincidence. However, given Russia's robust approach to counter-terrorism, it seems unlikely they would have let a suspect of serious concern travel in and out of their country without some form of action. Furthermore, while there have been instances of Chechen individuals being involved in plots outside Russia, for the most part Chechen jihadist networks have focused on Russia with some links to battlefields in Afghanistan and Syria.
Instead, it seems more likely that the Tsarnaev brothers are a 'lone' or 'solo' actors that were partially radicalized online and carried out their attacks without direction from overseas.. While there seem to be some investigative strands that suggest others – specifically a mysterious figure named Misha – may have facilitated on Tamerlan's radicalisation, the investigation does not seem to be pointing to a wider terrorist cell with many external connections. The conclusion seems to be that the men found and absorbed radical ideas largely by themselves, before deciding to launch a terrorist campaign to punish America for wars against Islam and in line with ideas they found in publications like Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) Inspire magazine, advanced by preachers like Sheikh Feiz Mohammed and possibly explained by individuals like the mysterious Misha.
Reportedly, Dzhokhar, the younger brother, told investigators that they got their bomb design and ideas from Inspire magazine, the publication put out by Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It seems that the reported pressure cooker device used at the Boston bombing may have been drawn from a design suggested in the first edition of the magazine from Summer of 2010 . Moreover, it appears that this was merely the first incident in an intended campaign of further destruction. According to investigators, the brothers told a man whose car they hijacked that 'we just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon. And now we're going to New York.' But so far no evidence has emerged that there was anyone orchestrating this plot, telling the men what to do and who to attack. The targeting of a marathon, a random policeman and then heading to New York is all very evocative of Inspire magazine's brand of terrorism against society at large rather than symbols of government or authority.
The Dilemma of Identifying an Isolated Threat
From a security analysis perspective, it is often connections that make it possible for authorities to become alert to individuals or terrorist cells. Intercepted communications or contact with known extremists will place cells or individuals on official radars, leading to possible deeper investigation that may uncover the existence of a threat. Networks tend to trip over intelligence leads directing authorities to focus on them as particular potential threats.
The particular problem, however, posed by 'lone' or 'solo actor' individuals – that is a terrorist cell that conduct attacks without any clear direction or command and control from external groups – is that oftentimes they may throw up subsequent connections, but these are hidden amongst a mass of other information. For example, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's travel to Chechnya and his online activity may be something that now seem deeply suspicious, but it is possible that at the time they would have been pieces of evidence that are fairly common amongst young North Caucasians. The fact that the extent of the Russian follow-up was to warn American counterparts of their concerns suggests that these links did not draw bright red flags.
One is faced with the dilemma of identifying which of these strands of information or intelligence will result in an unravelling of a terrorist cell, versus information of people simply flirting with radical material online. This is clearly a very difficult job, and in some cases it seems likely that it would be almost impossible to identify people pre-event. For example, Roshonara Choudhry, the King's College London student who in May 2010 tried to kill MP Stephen Timms for his support of the Iraq war, would have been very difficult to detect prior to carrying out her attack. Thus far, all that is known about the extent of her radicalisation was that she was watching videos by Anwar al-Awlaki and Abdullah Azzam online.
Other cases, however, like Khalid Aldawsari in Texas, show how tripwires can catch potential 'lone' or 'solo actor' terrorists. In that case, Aldawsari attempted to purchase chemicals from the Carolina Biological Supply company, using a commercial shipping company to have them delivered to his home in Lubbock, Texas. Both the chemical company and the shipping company flagged the purchase as one of concern to authorities, leading to an investigation by the FBI that uncovered Aldawsari as a loner terrorist cell building a bomb whose diary was full of menacing jihadist ideas. He was convicted in November last year and sentenced to life imprisonment.
'Inspiring' Terrorism
Recognition of the difficulty to detect such cells is exactly why Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been actively pushing, through its magazine Inspire, towards the idea of people carrying out terrorist attacks on this basis. By simply using everyday items, they are able to launch whatever sort of incident they are able to against the West. What has loosely been called 'Just Do It' terrorism in the press and has been referred to as 'Open Source Jihad' by AQAP inInspire. It is all aimed at detaching operational command and control from the terrorist cell in recognition of the fact that it is this element which most often proves the compromising element.
But while AQAP has been actively pushing this through their publications and messages, andInspire has repeatedly shown up in investigations in Europe and North America, there is little evidence that the magazine has in itself been a generator of cells. It is a regular feature of terrorist investigations, but it does not seem as though simply reading the publication is turning people into terrorists. Rather, people have used it for ideas – with already radicalised individuals using it as a way to figure out how to build a device. From an investigative perspective, it is difficult to know how to identify the individuals using it for operational purposes versus curious young men and women is difficult without a fuller intelligence picture. Even if individuals have downloaded the magazine, it is not necessarily the case that they are worth the resources of an investigation by authorities.
However, the picture becomes more interesting for investigators if the magazine appears alongside other potentially incriminating evidence. For example, that the individual is consuming increasingly radical material, is planning travel to parts of the world where Al-Qa'ida or affiliated movements are particularly active or is seeking connections with other radicals or groups. And it is here that intelligence and police agencies clearly need to focus when they are trying to pre-emptively identify Lone or Solo Actor terrorist cells. No doubt a difficult prospect, but given the growing propensity of terrorist cells to look like this, something that requires deeper understanding.
A final note to touch upon is the fact that the Boston cell appears to be made up of two people rather than an isolated individual. However, as brothers with the older leaving a more radical footprint, it is possible that he was the radicalising agent who influenced his younger brother.Stories are emerging of the older brother's influence over his younger sibling. While such isolated cells with no external connections are rare, they are not unheard of: for example, in October 2009 Mohammed Game blew himself up at the gates of a Milan barracks. While later investigation uncovered links to two others who were subsequently prosecuted, no wider connections from the cell were ever uncovered. Similarly, in May 2007, a group in New Jersey were arrested for plotting some sort of attack against the Fort Dix barracks – at the heart of the cell were the three Duka brothers, Albanian-Americans, and their brother-in-law Mohammed Shenwer, who were apparently Anwar al-Awlaki fans and were plotting some sort of incident in New Jersey. These sorts of isolated 'solo' or 'lone actor' (or as the author has previously referred to them 'Lone Wolf Packs') cells tend to be easier to locate given their tendency to have more external links or tripwires for authorities to come across them. However, as shown in the Boston and Milan cases, these cells can also slip by undetected.
The key conclusion for security agencies is that such terrorist cells are notoriously difficult to uncover prior to event. Some work can be done in targeted public information campaigns aimed at chemical companies, storage firms or other industries that might be conduits for individuals to obtain transformative material for homemade explosives. This will help give authorities leads like those that led to Khalid Aldawsari's detention. As the tendency towards 'lone' or 'solo actor' cells becomes a pattern, a more comprehensive pattern may emerge of such lone/solo actor individuals or cells, providing authorities with a better profile that they can test information against to see if individuals are moving in a direction of concern.
The main policy conclusion that can be usefully drawn is that as such cells are hard to detect, greater work needs to be focused on subsequent response and management of information that would allow analysts to determine whether a terrorist plot is part of an externally directed or self-directed campaign.
Furthermore, a concerted effort will be required to remove the mystique around such attackers. The first step would be to encourage a public culture that equates would-be attackers to mass shooters rather than a heroic terrorist. If this is done successfully, it is possible they will consider other avenues of expression and Inspire's message will be less inspiring.
Boston Marathon: 'Keep Calm and Carry on Running'
Posted: April 17, 2013 in Royal United Services Institute
Tags: lone wolves, radicalization, terrorism, US
A rather quick response piece to events in Boston with a colleague at RUSI in response to the inevitable surge in inquiries after the sad incident. Undoubtedly more about this as it emerges, though I am wary of ascribing responsibility at this point. My own sense is that it is likely a lone individual, something I say based on the sort of device, the random target and the lack of any subsequent ideological messaging, but until more information emerges it is dangerous to speculate too much.
RUSI Analysis, 16 Apr 2013By Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Research Fellow; Jennifer Cole, Senior Research Fellow, Resilience & Emergency Management
The authorities in the United States are rightly cautious in ascribing blame to yesterday's incident in Boston. The explosions – killing three and injuring over 140 – highlight the importance of securing public events without being governed by fear.
With no claims of responsibility and no ideological leads that authorities are visibly pursuing, it is almost impossible to know why yesterday's attack in Boston took place.
The early facts are clear: the target was the Boston Marathon; the use of two devices, and their location, suggests the intention was to kill as many people as possible; and the devices appear to have been homemade, possibly with black powder. None of these details conclusively point to a particular individual or a group.
Sporting events in the United States have been targeted before. Most prominently during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Eric Rudolph targeted the games with a homemade explosive, killing two and injuring more than a hundred. Looking further afield, of course, the Munich Olympics of 1972 stand out as a major incident conducted by international terrorists taking advantage of the spotlight that the games brought. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, attacks on public places with the aim of causing mass casualties – such as those in Madrid, London, Mumbai and Norway – have become the favoured modus operandi of terrorists around the world, regardless of the ideologies to which they subscribe.
The choice of two explosive devices, timed to detonate within seconds of one another, and the use of shrapnel inside them suggest the perpetrator(s) wanted to harm as many people as possible. Eyewitnesses record that the second explosion happened as they were running from the first. In addition, choosing the finishing line of the Boston Marathon as a target ensures that media coverage of the attack will reach the eyes of the world within seconds: television cameras and press photographers were already on site, while a plethora of social media was available with which both the media and the public could broadcast the incident far and wide.
Fortunately for many of the runners and spectators caught up in the attack, there was a large emergency-response team on hand. A marathon – or any other large public event – by necessity has high numbers of volunteer and professional paramedics on standby, as well as large numbers of crowd stewards and police to help keep the situation as calm as possible. Command-and-control centres – ready to deal with any incident that arises – will already have been established to manage the marathon and will be able to respond to the incident quickly.
Just as fortunately, perhaps, the improvised explosive devices seem to have produced a relatively limited explosion and to have caused few fatalities.
Who Perpetrated These Attacks?
The key questions that remain are who was responsible for this incident and what they hoped to achieve. Given there was no specific intelligence regarding an attack, it will take time for the US authorities to determine the identity of the culprit(s).
There are numerous terrorist groups who could have conducted an attack, including domestic groups. For example, the forthcoming twentieth anniversary of the climax of the Waco siege, centred on a cult based in Texas, could prompt such an attack by a sympathetic domestic group; while those on the far political right and Patriot movements in America should not be immediately or instinctively discounted as potential perpetrators. It may even be a lone individual.
But the truth is that at this stage we do not know, and it is not useful to speculate over who was responsible and whether or not the choice of a marathon run on Patriots' Day as the target is significant. The incident highlights how rapidly and easily it is possible to grip the world's attention with a single act of violence. Whether the perpetrator is a lone wolf, right wing, jihadist or other, this terror plot has once again caught the world's attention.
However tragic the event, from a resilience perspective it is important to guard against allowing the psychological damage to outweigh the physical and material. Whoever the perpetrators and whatever their specific aim, their real victory is counted not in the number of people killed or injured in Boston, but in the impact the attacks may have on, to quote the UK National Security Strategy, the ability of those targeted 'to go about their daily lives freely and with confidence'. The more this freedom is undermined, the greater the success of the act of terrorism.
Questions have already been raised about the security of the forthcoming London Marathon, taking place within days of its Boston counterpart, on 21 April. In his 2007 review of security in crowded public places, Lord West (then Under-Secretary of State for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the Home Office) made clear that while the threat to such events has increased in recent years, lockdown is neither practical nor prudent.
Nonetheless, it is worth reviewing security arrangements in advance of the London Marathon this weekend. Such security arrangements are made up of two workstreams: to 'protect' and 'prepare', both of which the government sees as a high priority and which have also been practised extensively in recent months – an feature of the Olympic legacy. During the 2012 Olympics, London hosted a marathon for which security arrangements were ramped up considerably from those in place for previous London Marathons. As one of the few events not completely contained within the Olympic Park or dedicated venues, the vulnerabilities will have been scrutinised extensively and plans will have been made for the mitigation of an attack. The planning for this and the Olympic Torch relay route is still fresh in the minds of all those involved, as are the skills and techniques used in implementing the plans – from protecting transportation routes without imposing airport-style security measures, to using CCTV camera software to pick up suspicious behaviour in crowds.
Such preparation has to be done in advance; additional personnel cannot be sourced and trained in days. They need to be ready to go – and they will be. It is likely that some of the security infrastructure put in place for Baroness Thatcher's funeral tomorrow will now remain in place over the weekend, including the numbers of personnel on high-readiness to deploy, for example, and the incident control rooms fully staffed and ready to respond immediately.
Similarly, there will be an increased security focus on any intelligence that may suggest a threat to the marathon and on anything that might be known by then about the perpetrators of the Boston attacks or their networks. Luckily, ramping command-and-control networks and intelligence-sharing back up to Olympic-period levels will still be based on personal memory and experience; new technology paid for out of Olympic budgets is still state-of-the-art. Such solid preparation brings with it as high a level of protection as possible. Everything that can be done will be done to ensure the safety and security of the London Marathon, and especially so in the aftermath of the tragic events in Boston.
As one participant in the Boston Marathon was heard to say, we need to 'keep calm and carry on running.'
When is a Lone Wolf a Lone Wolf?
Posted: March 1, 2012 in Free Rad!cals
Tags: Al Qaeda, Anwar al awlaki, counter-radicalization, counter-terrorism, lone wolves, terrorism, US
This is going up a bit late, since have been a bit distracted with other obligations. It also ended up being published after Intelwire and Red State articles on the topic, though I had written it before reading them both (honest!). A long post for Free Rad!cals, something I am trying to return to with some regularity. This is exploring the subject of Lone Wolves that I have long been going on about, and in fact was quoted in a CNN story on the topic and a Christian Science Monitor one. It has been a while since I posted for a variety of reasons, but in the meantime, I was quoted a fair bit in this story linked to the London Somalia conference in the Danish newspaper Information and separately (and unrelated) on Chinese influence in Central Asia in an article that was written for Eurasianet and reprinted in the Atlantic.
View more articles by Raff Pantucci
Filed under: Anwar al-Awlaki, Homegrown extremism
The arrest last Friday of Amine el Khalifi as he strode towards the US Capitol Building with what he thought was a functioning MAC-10 submachine gun and explosive suicide vest marks the latest in a growing list of individuals who have been incarcerated in the United States in cases involving intelligence agents. As with many previous cases, this one has already been called a "lone wolf" by officialdom in the US. But does this definition really hold water in a case like Khalifi's?
The problem with using this definition in Khalifi's case is that central to the plot seems to be at least one law enforcement agent and a confidential informant. Individuals who hinted to him that they were connected with al Qaeda and ultimately provided him with what he thought were the tools to conduct a Fedayeen-style terrorist attack on the Capitol Building. All of which suggests that in Khalifi's mind he was not actually a "lone wolf," but rather an individual who was part of a terrorist cell.
This distinction is important since it raises a subsidiary question of whether Khalifi would have actually done something if he hadn't had the community of agents around him to both provide him with what he thought was a cell, as well as the weapons to carry out his terrorist attack. Khalifi was clearly a disjointed fellow – a former landlord is quoted as saying he was suspicious of Khalifi and found him to be a very troublesome tenant suspecting he may have been building bombs – but how dangerous was he and did he have the wherewithal to launch a terrorist plot by himself?
At this point, we shall never know. Given Khalifi was captured as he marched up to his intended target armed with a machine gun and suicide vest, it is hard to envisage any jury finding him innocent or to disagree with this conclusion. And it is perfectly possible that Khalifi is indeed a deranged individual who may have been prone to going down a path of violence. But the dilemma is the degree to which the cell of agents empowered him, and whether they could have used the information to dissuade him instead of helping him in this direction.
His case is very similar to that of Jose Pimental, a New Yorker arrested earlier this year by NYPD as he was supposedly building a bomb with what emerged to be a police agent. In that case, Pimental was also described as something of an oddball who would broadcast his radical views loudly online, was part of the community of individuals involved in the Revolution Muslim website and decided to get involved in a plot once he came across what he thought was a fellow radical. Pimental was seemingly obsessed with Anwar al Awlaki, and had apparently tried to reach out to him, but to no avail. Oddly enough, in that case the FBI declined to become involved leaving the case in the NYPD's jurisdiction hinting that Pimental was not that dangerous (an odd conclusion given the similarities to the Khalifi case). Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly backed their forces, however, declaring Pimental a " total lone wolf."
This approach to capturing violent Islamist cells is not a particularly new one for American forces. While I may have missed some cases, scanning old reports and lists on the topic of disrupted terrorist plots in the US, it seems to me as though the first plot involving unaffiliated individuals who were caught using a confidential informant involved Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay who were planning to bomb a subway station in New York City in August 2004. In that case, a police agent, who allegedly offered his services to trawl through New York's Muslim community to identify Muslims who were bringing a bad name to his religion, was key in securing the convictions.
However, it seems as though Siraj had voiced his ideas to others prior to the agent and had another co-conspirator James Elshafay, a mentally troubled individual who volunteered to plant a bomb. In other words, Siraj was moving in a dangerous direction with others even prior to meeting the agent. While it is true that the agent might have acted like a final trigger into moving him into action, he was not operating in a total vacuum with the agents acting as his only contacts to other extremists prepared to do something.
When we look at a case like Khalifi's, there are a number of key differences. In his case, Khalifi's entire connection to the al Qaeda cell he thought he was part of was fictitious. Unlike Siraj whom it seems was both voicing his opinions, but also in contact with others willing to carry out violence, Khalifi seems to have been willing to voice his radical ideas but was not in contact with any others eager to follow the path he eventually took, until he encountered the federal agents.
But the purpose here is not to condemn the use of confidential informants or undercover agents – but instead to focus on whether we can really call such individuals lone wolves and what effect this approach is having on reducing this problem.
The answer to the first question is clearly negative: these individuals cannot really be called "lone wolves" since they were really not acting alone. They were part of what they thought was a cell. That this turned out to be mostly federal agents is important as it complicates whether we can confidently say that they would have chosen this path independently and acted as "lone wolf" terrorists. The answer is we cannot – we shall never know whether they would have chosen this path without the group around them. Certainly we can look at the individual's readiness to move into action with some level of concern, but we cannot confidently say they would have done this absent the contacts with agents.
It is easy to understand why enforcement agencies favor this sort of an approach. Lone Wolf terrorists are very hard to spot and identify before they move into action – this approach draws out individuals who seem to be moving in this direction and merely gives them the tools to hang themselves by their own petards. In this way it is pre-emptive. For example, someone like Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the 19-year-old Portland, Oregon Somali who tried to blow up a vehicle bomb at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in late 2010. According to court documents, Osman was trying to make contact with radicals in Pakistan to try to join them to fight jihad. Having identified him, federal agents moved in and in the end Osman decided to try to carry out an attack within America.
In a case like Osman's it is easy to see the logic behind a pre-emptive approach. Osman was clearly interested in making contact and joining radicals abroad. Conviction on the basis of this sort of contact is no doubt hard to prove; so sending agents in to understand the individual better makes some sense. That this then led to him wanting to carry out a plot within the US is one outcome this can lead to – whether Osman suggested it or the agents did is something that will no doubt come out in trial. Pimental had tried to reach out to other radicals (including Anwar al Awlaki allegedly), but it is not clear whether this is also the case with Khalifi.
The other logic behind such operations is the notion of deterrence. If you catch and convict some individuals like this, it serves as an example to the other potential ones out there. Siraj received a 30-year sentence for his crime, and Osman, Pimental and Khalifi are looking at similar sentences. And unlike Europe, where long sentences can be reduced with good behavior, etc, in the United States, long terms means a long time in a prison where prosecutors openly admit same sex rape is common.
But the deterrence case somewhat falls down when we consider how long the United States has been pursuing such individuals and how they continue to appear. If we take the Siraj case as a first example – we can see how since 2006 (on the basis of when he was incarcerated versus arrested) examples have been publicly made of what is going to happen to you if you wander down this path and how there are agents out there seeking to catch you. And yet we have continued to see cases occur with this latest pair merely the most recent in a long list. Of course it is possible that there would have been many more, and that in fact the relatively small number we see is a reflection that in fact this deterrent effect is working, but this is another statistic that will be impossible to ever prove.
There is no clean answer to this discussion. One solution I have advocated is that police and intelligence agencies should identify such people and then instead of moving in with a team to catch them doing something bad, send in a team to dissuade them from doing anything. Make it obvious to them that they are wandering down a dangerous path and they should get off it. This might scare some sense into them and lead them to choosing another path. It might also have the opposite effect in some cases, but I am certain if an intervention is handled properly, it could save a lot of time and effort from courts, prisons and intelligence agencies.
But to return to the question I started this whole post off with: when is a lone wolf a lone wolf? He can be considered a "lone wolf" terrorist when he tries to carry out a terrorist act by himself or herself, without any support or command and control from known or unknown networks. To call individuals like Jose Pimental or Amine el Khalifi "Lone Wolves" is a misinterpretation of the term that is only going to complicate the struggle in identifying such individuals that really are "Lone Wolves." The real "lone wolves" are people like Khalid Aldawsari, the Saudi student in Texas whose romantic and poetic blog masked a desire to build a bomb to attack America. He quietly worked away on his plot until he tried to purchase chemicals from an attentive seller. They reported him to authorities and he was subsequently arrested and is now awaiting trial. People like Jose Pimental or Amine el Khalifi may indeed have been potential "lone wolves" in the future, but the reality is we shall never know whether they were actually going to go down this path or not.
Muslim Integration: America Must Avoid Europe's Mistakes
Posted: February 2, 2012 in Free Rad!cals
Tags: counter-radicalization, counter-terrorism, Europe, terrorism, UK, US, US foreign policy
Another short blogpost for Free Rad!cals, this time on a topic that has been bugging me for a while. It seems as though the US is making a few unfortunate choices in counter-radicalisation terms that emulate earlier mistakes Europe made, something particularly silly given how much attention they have lavished on studying and criticising Europe's mistakes. This was already up, but I see now that guru Brian Michael Jenkins has written an excellent piece for Foreign Affairs attacking another mistaken American policy choice. Of course, not everything the US has done is negative in this regard, but there are a few silly mistakes that seem to be being made.
Filed under: Europe, Homegrown extremism, UK
Americans love to berate Europe and its failings. Youthful America looks to its European progenitor and sees post-colonial stagnation and sclerotic economies that are unwilling to face up to their problems. A bugbear of the past few years has been criticism of Europe's approach to its resident Muslim population. Commentaries have focused on a problem that is seen by many as an incubator of anger that has expressed itself in the form of attacks by European, or European-based, terrorists against America – most notably on September 11, 2001.
But while Europe has in the past provided a depressingly productive Petri dish for Muslim rage with contradictory policies that have had an alienating effect on parts of the broader community, it is increasingly the case that America is simply following Europe in the same direction. Recent stories of New York's police department using inflammatory videos about Islamist extremism in training come in the wake of stories of possibly CIA assisted intelligence operations against Muslim communities. Whatever the tactical utility of such operations, it is clear that from a hearts-and-minds perspective they can be seen to be a failure.
More absurdly, states have tried to pass laws preventing shariah law from being imposed on them – a highly unlikely outcome, but reflective of the high levels of paranoia and anti-Muslim feeling amongst the American public. Something also seen in stories of Muslim leaders being disembarked from domestic flights with little reason given, in some cases as they were on their way to conferences about "Islamophobia".
At a political level the conversation has been just as poisonous as in Europe. Potential Republican candidate Newt Gingrich has spoken of "the mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it" posed by shariah. In Congress, Representative Peter King has held hearings accusing America's Muslim community of failing to regulate itself and producing homegrown terrorists. And while a direct correlation with this polarizing narrative is of course impossible to draw, there has been an increase in young Americans drawn by the lure of jihad abroad or into becoming involved in what they believe are terror plots within the US in the past few years.
Europe has hardly covered itself in glory in integrating its Muslim communities. But neither has America, and the current approach is increasingly emulating many of Europe's failed policies. It is all very good to shout about Europe's failings, but the United States needs to increasingly look within before it allows its problems to get too out of hand.
America has a long tradition of being a national melting pot, able to absorb people of all cultures and creeds and accepting of diversity as a crucial element of its identity. For years, the belief was that America would be immune to the sort of problems that Europe faced with homegrown extremism. As time has shown, however, this is clearly not the case with numerous young men drawn to the flame of extremism. The United States should focus on learning positive lessons from Europe's problematic experience and avoid emulating its failed policies.
China Passes the Buck in Afghanistan
Posted: November 4, 2011 in Foreign Policy
Tags: Afghanistan, China, China and the world, Chinese foreign policy, Pakistan, US, US foreign policy
Slightly delayed in posting this here for a variety of reasons. Anyway, a new piece for Foreign Policy's AfPak Channel looking at China's play in Afghanistan. Re-reading my old piece in Foreign Policy on the subject, I see I am a bit more positive this time around, but still no clear signs of a Chinese shift. What I realise now that I also didn't go into was the stories I have been hearing about the Chinese doing more proactive training efforts with Afghans. Another time maybe. Ultimately, however, the real question for this all will be what happens with the US, after that we might get a clearer sense of China's plan. More on this topic to come.
By Raffaello Pantucci | Friday, October 28, 2011 – 4:47PM
As we pass the 10-year anniversary of the US-led war in Afghanistan, most attention has been focused on how much longer the United States intends to stay in the region. But a question that has not been addressed is who is going to be putting the pieces together afterwards. The European Union (EU) and the United States are clearly at the end of their tether, while Russia, India and other nearby powers continue to lack the capacity or means to dominate the region. Other rising regional power China may continue to be wary of becoming involved in any foreign entanglements, but as a friend put it in a meeting in Beijing the other day, China may not have broken the teapot of Afghanistan, but it is one that sits firmly on their borders.
And there is some evidence that this reality is sinking in at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Chinese firms have made substantial investments in Afghanistan. The Aynak copper mine has been joined by an investment in oil fields in northern Afghanistan. And while Chinese firms in the end did not invest in the Bamiyan iron mines they have still cast their lot in terms of developing Afghan infrastructure – pouring money into telecoms, road-building and train lines linking Afghanistan to the rest of the region.
But this has not been supported by any large-scale investment in Afghan security. For that, China continues to look to NATO on the ground and more implicit protection from her close ally in Islamabad. As one senior Afghan put it to me, a reason that was often given for why the Chinese had gotten some of these deals was that it was known how close they were to Pakistan. The assumption was that if the deal went to China then the site would be protected in some way and the development would proceed.
While unclear to what degree this was the determining factor, the story plays into what seems to be China's main foreign policy factor when considering Afghanistan, and that is Pakistan. The Sino-Pak relationship is one of the closest in the world, spanning trade, nuclear weapons, counter-terrorism and regional hedging against India. As both sides characterize it publicly, it is "higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, stronger than steel, sweeter than honey, and dearer than eyesight." And into this fits Afghanistan, a troublesome country that borders both and is the source of regional instability. China, still a hesitant foreign policy actor, is unwilling to do too much to assert her authority in the region and is more than happy to let eager Pakistan take the lead.
And this approach is something that has worked for China for many years now. Unwilling to become involved in a conflict that could force it to take sides in a conflict in which it could be painted as part of some alliance against Islam and potentially support actors who would encourage separatists in the restive Xinjiang province, China has hesitated to do much in Afghanistan in support of NATO efforts in the country. For some in China, there was a sense that NATO's loss in Afghanistan was China's gain and that the potential encirclement that might result from NATO success on their borders would be to China's detriment, while for others there was a sense that this was a lost cause anyway and that Afghanistan was the "graveyard of empires."
Instead, China focused on investing in things that seemed like a good idea. A large copper mine at Aynak sits close to China's borders and consequently seemed a wise investment to first bid for it and then offer a whole package of deals including a local power station and train line to provide the backdrop to make the deal work for the Chinese firm. All of this would help supply China's need for copper, as well as develop a part of the country that was close to China and would therefore potentially have a knock-on effect in improving prosperity in neighboring underdeveloped Chinese province Xinjiang. Similarly with the deal to secure the oil fields in Amu Darya – China's unslakable thirst for hydrocarbons means it will reach out anywhere to get them, and when they are so close to home, all the better.
But while none of this disagrees with western policy in Afghanistan, there is no sense that China is willing to buy into any active policy supporting western goals in the region. China continues to be the ultimate hedging power in Afghanistan – while it seems clear that they are willing to support western aims in the country, there continues to be a lack of any clear evidence that they are as willing to expend political capital or effort to advance their goals actively in the country. This is not to say they are indolent in advancing their interests, but that they are wary of becoming entangled in a country that has repeatedly shown a capacity to reject foreign influence.
From a Chinese perspective, the answer to Afghanistan is clear. The tribes need to fight it out amongst each other – to paraphrase what one expert told me in Beijing, this is a country with "lots of big powerful men who need to be kept happy" and outsiders do not really stand much of chance moderating this. Ultimately, the country is poor, will clearly need investment going forward, and China will be there to support it. With deep pockets and no conditions, this support can be funneled to whomever is in charge and to whomever has the power of the provinces where China has direct interests. When it comes to border threats, China seems to have managed to secure strong intelligence links and is able to keep a quite firm lid on any potential threats from extremist groups with links to networks in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
China's play in Afghanistan has been very hesitant so far. The reason for this is a lack of certainty in Beijing about what Washington's game plan is. In the meantime, they have continued to make careful strategic investments with a view to the long game. And while from a western analysis this should mean a greater Chinese interest in stabilizing the current government, from Beijing's perspective it is far better to let things play themselves out while focusing on specific interests. This will not necessarily help western aims to re-shape Afghanistan, but it will strengthen China's hand when the west finally leaves.
Raffaello Pantucci is a Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and an Associate Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalisation. He blogs athttp://www.raffaellopantucci.com.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's Expanding Western Connections
Posted: October 15, 2011 in Terrorism Monitor
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, counter-radicalization, counter-terrorism, Europe, Germany, Pakistan, radicalization, TTP, UK, US, US foreign policy
A new piece for Jamestown on a subject I have been trying to get published for a while. Will keep this short as am in hurry, but more soon.
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 37
October 14, 2011 05:20 PM Age: 18 hrs
By: Raffaello Pantucci
As the United States breathed a sigh of relief that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 had passed without any major incident, the U.S. Justice Department announced that three men had pled guilty to charges of trying to smuggle a member of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) into the United States. As one of the suspects, Irfan ul-Haq, put it, it was "not their concern" what the smuggled individual might "want to do in the United States – hard labor, sweep floor, wash dishes in a hotel, or blow up. That will be up to them." [1] The men were apparently part of a network of people smugglers that was willing to help Pakistani TTP members enter the United States, highlighting once again the menace posed by the group to the United States, as perceived by the American security community.
The histories of the three men at the heart of this case are unclear. They were arrested on March 10 in Quito, Ecuador, as part of an operation by American forces (NTN24 [Bogata], September 20, 2011). In court documents released later, prosecutors laid out a case showing that from January 2011, undercover agents dispatched by a law enforcement agency approached two of the men in Quito, Irfan ul-Haq and Qasim Ali, to inquire about smuggling a fictitious person from Pakistan into the United States. The initial approach was to ul-Haq, who directed them to talk to Ali in order to obtain fraudulent documentation. The two men then met and spoke with the undercover agents a number of times to work out the details and a month later ul-Haq seems to have brought a third man, Zahid Yousaf, into the conspiracy. [2] It was at about this time that one of the undercover agents told the suspects he was a member of the TTP and that the individual who was intended to be smuggled was also a member – information that elicited the callous response highlighted before. [3] While it is unclear whether the suspects were actually supportive of TTP aims, their capacity to smuggle individuals out of Pakistan and into the United States using fraudulent documentation would have provided the TTP with a useful network were they able to connect with it. At one point the suspects provided the undercover agents with a sample fake British passport and ul-Haq boasted of having contacts in Pakistani immigration that could provide exit stamps for people who were wanted by security services.
This in turn highlights the general growing concern about the increasing internationalization of the TTP. On July 29 the UN Security Council agreed to add the TTP to the list of proscribed groups. [4] In an electronic interview with Terrorism Monitor, Richard Barrett, coordinator of the UN's al-Qaeda-Taliban Monitoring Group, said the move was "an important symbolic consequence" that showed "the international community as a whole condemns [the TTP] without reservation. This universal condemnation acts as an encouragement to all those who are opposed to TTP and have suffered from its violence." [5] The move follows earlier decisions to proscribe the TTP by Pakistan, the UK, the United States and most recently, Canada. [6] The threat to the West was brought into focus when Waliur Rehman, the head of TTP in South Waziristan, announced: "Soon you will see attacks against America and NATO countries, and our first priorities in Europe will be France and Britain" (al-Arabiya, June 28).
This is not the first time the group has threatened the West and it has attempted in the past to carry through on these threats. Back in January 2008, the group was connected to a plot to attack Barcelona, Spain and other possible EU targets by deploying a network of twelve men, ten Pakistanis and two Indians. According to prosecutors and an informant within the cell, some of the men had undergone training with TTP in Waziristan. The informant reported that the then-TTP leader Baitullah Mahsud had specifically identified him as a potential suicide bomber. The link to the TTP was confirmed in August 2008 when TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar released a video in which he stated, "the [foiled attack] in Barcelona was conducted by twelve of our men. They were under pledge to Baitullah Mahsud and the TTP has already claimed responsibility because [of] Spain's military presence in Afghanistan." [7]
While this plot was disrupted, responsibility for Faizul Shahzad's failed car bombing in Times Square in May 2010 was claimed by TTP soon afterwards in a video that featured footage of Shahzad at a TTP camp. According to the indictment that was handed down against him, Shahzad admitted to having trained alongside the group in Waziristan in December 2009. Having returned to the United States, Shahzad received some $5,000 in February 2010 to help him carry out an attack there. He then went about purchasing a gun and locating the necessary equipment to build a car bomb. [8]
While it is unclear whether Shahzad had any contact with TTP networks in the United States, the existence of these networks now seems to have been confirmed. Aside from the group arrested in Quito, FBI agents in Miami moved in May to disrupt a network based around a pair of imams in Florida who were allegedly running a fundraising network to send money to the TTP. According to prosecutors, the group sent at least $50,000 to Pakistan and discussed the terrorist attacks it was going to support with their contacts there (Miami Herald, May 14). This came after an August 2010 operation codenamed "Samosa" in Ottawa, Canada that was mounted by Royal Canadian Mounted Police forces to disrupt a network that was sending funds to the TTP and accumulating bomb making material locally (National Post, July 5).
Successful attacks have yet to emerge from these TTP support networks, but it seems likely that more plots will follow in the future. Given the ongoing trickle of foreigners drawn to Pakistan and the TTP's ongoing campaign at home against the Pakistani state and its American backers, it is likely that this connection will continue to be a focus of concern for Western intelligence agencies.
1. USA vs. Irfan ul Haq, Factual Proffer in Support of Guilty Plea, filed September 12, 2011.http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1683.pdf.
2. USA vs. Irfan ul Haq, Qasim Ali, Zahid Yousaf, Indictment filed March 3, 2011.http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1678.pdf.
4. http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQE13211E.shtml.
5. Author's email interview with Richard Barrett.
6. Public Safety Canada – Currently Listed Entitities, http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/ns/le/cle-eng.aspx#TTP.
7. http://www.nefafoundation.org/multimedia-intvu.html
8. USA vs. Faisal Shahzad, indictment, http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Shahzad_Faisal_Indictment.pdf .


Summer Lovin' Sign Up ~ Love.Life.Read.
As if that weren't enough – the week will end with a 24-hr marathon read-a-thon! Twitter parties, mini-challenges, games, prizes given EVERY HOUR, and more chances to get points toward the Grand Prize Packs.


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Home → Tech
Game Awards 2021: Star Wars Eclipse officially unveiled in trailer
Posted by Tad Fisher — December 10, 2021 in Tech 0
Last September, interesting rumors announced a possible New Star Wars game developed by Quantic Dream, Detroit is famous for Being Human and Heavy Rain. A few weeks ago, leaks became more and more convincing when the game's title and two artifacts were shown. Today, during the Game Awards 2021, the first trailer formalized the Star Wars Eclipse and we can tell you it sends heavy.
Gameplay Day Star Wars Eclipse
No, it's not a sequel to Fallen Order but actually a new title in George Lucas' universe. from what we know The story will take place during the Haute République period, 200 years before the events of the film The Phantom Menace.
Star Wars Eclipse is described as a new action-adventure game with multi-character storytelling. You'll be able to play as a variety of charismatic characters, each with their own unique history, abilities, and roles in events that could change the peace of the Outer Rim.
As in previous Quantic Dream games, your choices in Star Wars Eclipse will affect your adventure. It is up to you to define your own path.
If in full trailer CGI (Not the cinematics and gameplay), Quantic Dream has accustomed us to great graphics and so it is without too much fear that we envision a very promising Star Wars Eclipse. No release date has been communicated yet and will likely take a few years to play out.
Find out our calendar of video game releases in 2021, 2022, as well as the coming years on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, Xbox Series X, PS5: The next games or DLCs will be presented to you. their date. Release and trailer when available.
See also Telegram gets support for group calling - IT Pro - News
Tad Fisher
Prone to fits of apathy. Music specialist. Extreme food enthusiast. Amateur problem solver.
Respawn is reportedly working on a singleplayer FPS with an emphasis on dynamics and style
Playstation 5: This final and (really) long-awaited feature may soon see the light of day!
Google Meet wants to offer live translation during videoconferencing
RTX 3000 will be out of stock soon, Steam decks well planned for February 2022, it's recap
About the Author: Tad Fisher


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Q: Not able to frame correct JSON String I am learning JSON and using gson to frame json string.
Here it is what i need.
{
  "version": "1.0",
  "interface_type": "web",
  "request_type": "1",
  "username": "test",
  "password": "test",
  "sender_id": "test",
  "doctor_advice": false,
  "type": "test",
  "bulk": "test",
  "msg": "test",
  "recipients": [
    919845098450,
    919845098451
  ]
}

But i am getting like this.
{
  "version": "1.0",
  "interface_type": "web",
  "request_type": "1",
  "username": "test",
  "password": "test",
  "sender_id": "test",
  "doctor_advice": false,
  "type": "test",
  "bulk": "test",
  "msg": "test",
  "recepients": [
    "9845098450",
    "9845098451",
    {}
  ]
}

Please let me know how to make the request as above mentioned.
Here is the code
import com.google.gson.FieldNamingPolicy;
import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
import com.google.gson.JsonArray;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonPrimitive;
public class gsonWriter {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        JsonObject request = new JsonObject();
        request.addProperty("version", "1.0");
        request.addProperty("interface_type", "web");
        request.addProperty("request_type", "1");
        request.addProperty("username", "test");
        request.addProperty("password", "test");
        request.addProperty("sender_id", "test");
        request.addProperty("doctor_advice", false);
        request.addProperty("type", "test");
        request.addProperty("bulk", "test");
        request.addProperty("msg", "test");
        JsonArray recepients = new JsonArray();
        JsonObject recepientList = new JsonObject();
        recepients.add(new JsonPrimitive("9845098450"));
        recepients.add(new JsonPrimitive("9845098451"));
        recepients.add(recepientList);
        request.add("recepients", recepients);
        Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().serializeNulls()
                .setFieldNamingPolicy(FieldNamingPolicy.UPPER_CAMEL_CASE)
                .create();
        System.out.println(gson.toJson(request));
    }
}

and i don't want to use java-pojo for the same. Need plain string to pass it through URL.
Your help is much appreciated.
Also please suggest me an open source Json binder better than gson could be Jackson,Json, Genson or if any other which could help me to develop fully fledged application in which application continuously hit to restful services and receives the response from the same :).

A: The addition of recipientsList to the recipients JSonArray should not be necessary. Delete those lines and you will get the same output as you requested. Now you are adding an empty JSonObject, shown by the {} .

A: There are 2 differences in this fragment:
"recepients": [
  "9845098450",
  "9845098451",
  {}
]

*

*Recipients must be numbers, not strings.

*There shouldn't be that {} empty object.
Correct code:
JsonObject request = new JsonObject();
request.addProperty("version", "1.0");
request.addProperty("interface_type", "web");
request.addProperty("request_type", "1");
request.addProperty("username", "test");
request.addProperty("password", "test");
request.addProperty("sender_id", "test");
request.addProperty("doctor_advice", false);
request.addProperty("type", "test");
request.addProperty("bulk", "test");
request.addProperty("msg", "test");

JsonArray recepients = new JsonArray();
recepients.add(new JsonPrimitive(9845098450L));
recepients.add(new JsonPrimitive(9845098451L));
request.add("recepients", recepients);

Gson gson = new GsonBuilder()
        .setPrettyPrinting()
        .serializeNulls()
        .setFieldNamingPolicy(FieldNamingPolicy.UPPER_CAMEL_CASE)
        .create();
System.out.println(gson.toJson(request));

To pass recipients as a numbers, you need to pass a number in the JsonPrimitive constructor. Your values are too large for int type, so we need to make them long by adding suffix L.
To avoid empty {} object, just remove recepientList variable, it's not needed at all.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Waging Wisdom
UNCOMMON SENSE FOR A WORLD IN CONFLICT
[ Charles Strohmer ]
Understanding the Religious–Secular Dilemma of U.S.–Middle East Relations, part 2 of 4
Posted on January 14, 2016 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
In Part 1 of this article I discussed why it seemed somewhat odd that the fledgling new nation of the United States of America decided not include a "department of religion" in its foreign policy structure. On the other hand, as a sign of the intellectual times, it seemed normal. But what were those times? Let's look at that in this post. It was the end of the eighteenth century, and America's founding fathers, politically, had drawn heavily from Enlightenment rationalism's so-called secular way of doing politics. And that has had serious implications for U.S. foreign policy ever since. See what you think. Let's have some conversation about this.
Religion and the Secular:
The Foremost International Dilemma
of U.S.-Middle East Relations
by Charles Strohmer
The secularization of U.S. foreign policy has been aptly explored by Scott Thomas in The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations. An international relations scholar from the London School of Economics who teaches at the University of Bath, Thomas asks us to think about the conceptual map of secularism that has informed U.S. foreign policy making since its beginning.
The map dates back to Enlightenment reasoning, and on it Thomas finds four primary contours that have historically shaped Washington's approach to international relations. These contours suggest why it is difficult, if not unthinkable, for any presidential administration to seek the proper place of religion in U.S. foreign affairs. Briefly summarized here, the four contours are:
1) Secularization theory, which "helped to explain religion away, rather than to explain its significance in social action," for it was "argued that the numbers of people who declare themselves to be believers and who regularly attend religious services will steadily decline as a country modernizes."[1]
2) The civil war between Catholics and Protestants in France (1550-1650) and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) had engulfed all of Europe. The treaties that ended these catastrophic wars brought about what has been called the Westphalian era, in which the rise of "the liberal or secular state" was going to "save us from the cruel and violent consequences of religion. The modern state, the privatization of religion, and the secularization of politics arose to limit religion's domestic influence, minimize the affect of religious disputes, and end the bloody and destructive role of religion in international affairs."[2] In the Westphalian system, political governance is organized around states' so-called secular interests; religious toleration domestically, and religious noninterference in the domestic affairs of other states, are also guiding principles.
3) All of the different Western schools of international relations that have arisen since the seventeenth century have downplayed the study of religion upon international relations. Instead, each school in its own way (e.g., political realism and political idealism), have focused on aspects such as military power, national interests, the balance of power, international law, and international institutions.[3]
4) The Westphalian model has followed the dictates of the modern scientific method, whose twin controls of naturalism and materialism admit into its theories only one reality, the physical world. Here, religion is seen, at best, as a mere epiphenomenon, rather than as a basic instinct of human nature.[4]
To sum up…, Western political theory has explicitly followed secular contours. In so doing it has shaped and validated approaches to the study and practice of international relations and foreign policy in ways that have marginalized the legitimate interests and concerns of religious actors, religious belief, and religious institutions. After settling in, this political way of thinking has had more than 200 years to become second nature to specialists in U.S. foreign policy.
Similar to Thomas, Edward Luttwak, an international relations historian, attributes Washington's basic foreign policy problem with religion to what he calls its secularizing reductivism. And he adds this, which helps explain why political analysts, journalists, and others were caught short on the religious implications of 9/11. Today, "Enlightenment prejudice … has remained amply manifest in the contemporary professional analysis of foreign affairs." And with the sway of modern secularism, both politicians and journalists have often ignored "the role of religion, religious institutions, and religious motivation in explaining politics and conflict." Instead, they have focused far too much on geographic, economic, social, political, or other non-religious primary causes. For Luttwak, this indicates "a learned repugnance to contend intellectually with all that is religion or belongs to it."[5]
As I was thinking and writing about this one day back in 2007, I conducted a simple experiment. I pushed my chair back from my writing desk and took a break. I walked to my book shelves, where at the time I had fifty-two titles covering U.S. and Western international relations history, theory, and practice. Twelve of those titles were then in use in American university classrooms. (I ignored the other titles for this experiment.) I wanted to know how much attention the classroom texts (the twelve I knew about) gave to issues of religion in foreign policy. So I made some notes. Of the approximately 3,600 pages that comprise these twelve titles, only 76 pages addressed religious concerns, with many of the references limited to a short paragraph or less. And 61 of those pages appeared in one book![6]
Drawing from her personal experience as a foreign policy student, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright confirms the systemic, academic disinterest in religion in university IR classrooms. In The Mighty and the Almighty, Albright reveals that her education in world affairs gave her quite a distaste for anything to do with religion in international relations. To some of her Georgetown students, she opened a window on her academic training:
My speciality was foreign policy, about which such icons as Hans Morganthau, George Kennan, and Dean Acheson theorized in almost exclusively secular terms. In their view, individuals and groups could be identified by the nations to which they belonged. Countries had governments. Governments acted to protect their nations' interests, at least to the point where wars did not break out and the world did not blow up. Foreign policy was commonly compared to a game of chess: cerebral, with both sides knowing the rules. This was a contest governed by logic; its players spoke in the manner of lawyers, not preachers…. Religion was not a respecter of national borders; it was above and beyond reason; it evoked the deepest passions; and, historically, it was the cause of much bloodshed. Diplomats in my era were taught not to invite trouble, and no subject seemed more inherently treacherous than religion. This was the understanding that guided me while I was serving as President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and as secretary of state. My colleagues felt the same. [7]
Like many in her field, Albright moved off this position after 9/11. Now when teaching in university classrooms she explains to students that learning about world affairs "cannot be done without taking religious tenets and motivations fully into account."[8]
U.S foreign policy, of course, is not a one-way street. The formal role that religion plays in foreign policy toward America by Muslim majority countries in the Middle East is the other horn of the dilemma in U.S. – Mideast relations. Part 3 of this article delves into this much misunderstood area.
[1] Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillian, 2005), pp. 50, 52.
[2] Ibid., p. 22; see also pp. 54-55.
[3] Ibid., pp. 55-58.
[5] Johnston and Sampson, Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft; Luttwak, "The Missing Dimension," pp. 8-10.
[6] The twelve titles: The Twenty Years' Crisis: 1919-1939; The Anarchical Society; Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations; Paths to Power; Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy; Neorealism and Its Critics; Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Understanding International Conflicts; Power and Independence; Politics Among Nations; American Diplomacy; Promised Land, Crusader State (the title with the 61 pages). For complete title information, see this Bibliography on the Web.
[7] Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (HarperCollins, 2006), p. 8.
©2016 by Charles Strohmer
Images: Crescent moon by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center; two paths by William Ward (permissions via Creatve Commons).
This entry was posted in FOREIGN POLICY, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, U.S. - MIDDLE EAST RELATIONS and tagged Edward Lutttwak, Madeleine Albright, peace of Westphalia, Scott M. Thomas, secularization theory by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014. Bookmark the permalink.
1 thought on "Understanding the Religious–Secular Dilemma of U.S.–Middle East Relations, part 2 of 4"
Alexandru Nădăban on January 16, 2016 at 4:25 am said:
Reblogged this on Pasarea Phoenix Remixed & co.


We all hit those roadblocks where we find ourselves overloaded. Sometimes we lose energy and burn out from completing even our simplest daily tasks. We may even lose our desire for success. Once that happens, you'll find an instant drop in your self-confidence level. To prevent this downward spiral, there is a solution: Condition Yourself!
People usually speak of "conditioning" in terms of physical exercise, running, eating well and conditioning our muscles and bodies.
But we should also condition our subconscious mind, so that in times of stress and challenge, we are able to respond positively and vigorously.
One such conditioning method is to control your thoughts. I call it "self talk" and it usually works well. When your thoughts say to you "I just don't have the energy for this", flip the script. Tell yourself, "I have the energy to accomplish all my tasks." Don't worry that you "feel" depleted, just tell yourself you don't. Say it over and over again. Your body will respond to the messages you give your subconscious, and you really will find a new sense of energy.
Another method is to visualize.
To visualize, you must be in a relaxed state. Find a quiet space where you will be undisturbed. Sit in a comfortable position, relax your muscles from head to toe. Breath deeply and calmly, instructing yourself to "relax my face, relax my neck", and so on. Do it to the tip of your toes.
Get the idea? I will discuss this in more detail in the future.
Let me know your thoughts about this and also if you have ever tried it.
I love the idea of conditioning our subconscious mind!So many people focus in on physical body conditioning but ignore the mind. When we condition our mind by using the techniques you mentioned ie. visualization, self talk, positive affirmations, we will be mentally strong and can remain positive during times of stress and challenge. Thanks for the great advice!
I have a lifestyle of conditioning my subconscious. Once you do it, it becomes a part of your life!
I remember the first time I dabbled with this and was uplifted by the switch and change it made in my life. Now that I am aware and do this exercise it is easier to do.
We sure can condition ourselves and as we grow, the need grows with us.
Love this message Donna and you are so right.
I talk to myself every single day. Okay, I say positive and uplifting things out loud because to me they seem more real. As we both start our days off with our gratitude list I also check a list of some positive afformations that I speak out loud everyday as well.
I'm reprogramming my mind and bringing better things my way. The more you say them the more you believe them and the more they'll come true. Amen to that.
It is so good to know you do that. Reprogramming your mind does bring better things your way. It is that powerful subconscious mind that blocks us and we just won't allow that to happen.
You know how you walk into your job/office in the morning, and everyone always says "good morning, how are you today?" and everyone always grumbles and complains about the weather, they're tired, it's boring, whatever?
And people would actually comment on how I was always so cheerful all the time. It was sort of a self-perpetuating cycle. So instead of starting the morning grumbling about how I didn't want to be up so early, I started thinking about the day being great.
And it doesn't even have to be true… you just have to teach yourself (or condition as you say) to think differently. It totally works. And it always made my day a lot better!
Now that you got me thinking, I'm feeling inspired to write a blog post about this very topic!
Just one word can change your entire day. Thank you so much for your great input on this subject.
Now I have just learned something about myself! I'm using the wrong words!
Very nice video AGAIN with very helpful information dear 🙂 Few times I've been feeling that I'm overloaded with tasks and quite hard to focus as mind is kinda annoying and interfere on focusing.
Actually I've been used to meditate and taking some time off from the work to help me focus again. Yeah, at that time I've been talking to myself to motivate and it develops positive feelings inside me.
Meditation is great. Do you know that we naturally do it several times a day without being aware? Have you ever found yourself staring into space for a moment? That is a natural! But when we take it a step further, and create the time for it, our meditations can become more powerful.
And Yes, anyway we can reach a peaceful mindset will help us focus on what needs to be done throughout the day.
I agree with you about self talk and if when we are feeling overwhelmed we can turn our thoughts around and make ourselves believe we are able to get over our setback we will stop acting negatively and start feeling better. We will approach whatever it is anew.
Kerris Torkington recently posted..Go On I Challenge You!
I find I can self-talk my way out of anything these days. I have been practicing this method for 2 years now and it has become a habit.
I catch myself saying something negative and immediately turn it to a positive statement.
Oh that Law of Attraction!
I have to do this all the time because my health hasn't been good recently. I also have young kids and am a working mother. When I feel low or stressed I work through it with conditioning.
I won't be beaten. I won't let low confidence get me. I keep on top of things. Thanks for the insight today, Donna.
I hope you are feeling better. I'll keep you in my prayers my friend.
I know how well you understand this because I'm an avid reader of your blog on confidence.
I also know you won't be beaten! You know too much.
Thanks for visiting and feel better!
Thanks for these tips Donna. Visualization and self talk! Got it! I'm reading the Secret now. Have heard similar and now just have to learn to practice it more often. Thanks so much for the info.
Barbara Charles recently posted..Body By Vi Giveaway! Win A Free 5 or 30 Day Supply!
Running 3 businesses at once can put a strain on my being. But I have to be on top of things.
Yes, I have been at the place of "overwhelm" at times, but using visualizations and self-talk are only two of the modalities I use to get the job done!
Yes, I like that… "condition yourself". Basically, conditioning ourselves should be a daily routine.
It's so easy to fall into our "negative" routine, so to speak, we are working hard, we are tired, we start thinking negative, and so forth and so on.
When we condition ourselves we are like telling our subconscious positive thing with word and feelings, and that's what will put us on the right track.
Sylviane Nuccio recently posted..Why Do People Settle For Less?
Well if there is anyone who knew that, it is you Sylviane!
It is easy to fall into that "negative" mindset but as we "condition" ourselves and tell our subconscious positive things, we can be on the right track.
The more we do it, the more it becomes part of our mindset.
I agree with you 100%! I've always wanted to open my own web and graphic design business and serve lots of clients to earn lots of money. However, lately I've been trying to manage my own blog, design for clients, complete homework assignments, on top of participating in my personal life – BOY HAS IT BEEN OVERWHELMING! It's a lot to take on. Especially since all of my thoughts usually swim around my head. I can't seem to focus on just one thing. You should see my daily browser tabs – I'm always trying to work on everything at once.
I'm sure you will achieve your goal Carrie. There are so many things you are doing at once, it is difficult to take all the time and start a business.
Somehow, as you are completing your homework assignments and blogging, You might find some room to start.
Focusing on many things at once can overwhelm you. Check out some other blogs of mine. They deal with focusing and how to increase your productivity with calmness and focus.
Hi Donna what a great post. I whole heartedly agree with you about looking at our 'set talk' and changing it. And lots of other great suggestions too.
I use self-talk quite often to get myself out of negative thinking. We are not positive all the times. There are times when I go to a place that "I can't" comes into my mind.
With self-talk, I can get out of that zone of thinking. Hey, that's why I joined the Blog challenge. That red flag went up and here I am!
Donna, good ways to condition yourself to listen to your inner voice. We have a lot of things to do everyday, but we must calm down and listen to our own voices.
We give everyone else advice but rarely listen to ourselves.
We are so conditioned to listen to every one else from our family, to TV and on and on it goes.
We need to step back, relax and listen to that wise mind that we have within ourselves.
Using a relaxation methods, our subconscious is more prone to receive the messages we give to it.
you are making a great point about being relaxed when you visualize.
If we relax we go into the alpha state of brain waves where our subconscious mind can receive the new messages and as a result we built neural pathways.
Personally I like using affirmations that have "More and more I am … or I love the thought of…" added to it which helps eliminating the doubts and I find it easier to accept the new thought.
Yorinda recently posted..Who runs the Show in Your Life?
Agreed. We must be in an Apha state in order for our subconscious to receive the message LOUD AND CLEAR!
Ohh….I like that part of the affirmation "More and more I am…That does eliminate those doubts.


The best adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's ever-popular novel is also the slimmest in terms of its story. Despite the fact that it edits Bronte's source more than any other adaptation ever did, it is still the only version to really get the feel of it right until 2011. Joan Fontaine is excellent as the timid governess to a rough and callous widower (Orson Welles), who finds herself caring deeply for the lonely man who employs her. Their growing friendship is so enjoyable to watch, but of course in the third act some moody, atmospheric terror starts to creep in and set everything on its ear. Look for a gorgeous little Elizabeth Taylor playing Eyre's deathly ill childhood friend.


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Q: Constructor call to wpf usercontrol (with path and geometry) taking 4 secs I have to create an user control and pass it to a modal dialog:
var control = new ThresholdWarningOverrideModalUserControl(); //The problem is this line of code not after that

var dialog = new ModalDialog(control, this.ViewModelInstance);
dialog.ShowDialog();

Now the first line of code takes 4 - 5 seconds to execute. But it is not even rendering anything. However this user control draws using path.
The usercontrol constructor is simple and all the code is in xaml:
 public ThresholdWarningOverrideModalUserControl()
 {
       this.InitializeComponent();
 }

If I remove the drawing paths the control loads quickly. The paths have binding and converters to imagebrush and objects.

A: Actually there are images inside drawpath and when I load the images beforehand and store them as properties in viewmodel and then supply the viewmodel to the control in constructor it loads in 100 ms.


-Went on some fun vacations. I travel frequently to see my family and was able to go Portland, OR for my sister's 30th birthday and also to the Grand Canyon for a very cool hiking trip with my parents.
-Finished another year of my masters degree. I only have one semester left!
-Participated in PitchWars and got to mentor two AWESOME writers.
-Was let-go from my job, found a part-time teaching gig at a local community college, and then was re-hired by the first company (that was a crazy month, let me tell you).
-And, of course, I read some pretty amazing books.
Here's my reading list from 2014! I've bolded the books that I particularly enjoyed (bold & italics mean I had book hangovers after finishing them ). I'm starting 2015 off with the The Real Boy by Anne Ursu and am loving it so far. What books did you fall head over heels for in 2014?


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Подстрана () — населений пункт і громада в Сплітсько-Далматинській жупанії Хорватії.

Населення
Населення громади за даними перепису 2011 року становило 9129 осіб.

Динаміка чисельності населення громади:

Клімат
Середня річна температура становить 14,76 °C, середня максимальна – 27,86 °C, а середня мінімальна – 2,02 °C. Середня річна кількість опадів – 814 мм.

Примітки

Населені пункти Хорватії

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: Use Entity Framework in .net 4.0 with Oracle database I#m having the same problem as in issue: Use Entity Framework in .net 4.0 with Oracle database - possible?
The question was not answered in my opinion. So I would like to know if there is a possibility of using EF6 with Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.EntityFramework for a .NET4.0 project.


On April 19th, Mahalo Tiki Lounge is venue to an exciting Girls' Night Out Sparty (Spa+Party) Series hosted by BloomMe & our good friends at Voltage PR. BloomMe - Hong Kong's last minute beauty and grooming bookings app with discounted prices at Hong Kong's top spa and salons offers on site complimentary spa treatments and a special treat for our Edgy readers!
The Girls' Night Out Sparty will take place from 7pm to 10pm with advanced tickets at HK$200 and HK$280 at the door. Tickets include a complimentary BloomMe cocktail, a HK$150 BloomMe Cash Voucher, on-site spa treatments and a swag bag filled with goodies sponsored by Spa Monkeys, Naveen and Calm-a-Mama.
Four participating spas, namely Pavillon Medspa, 10/10 Space, Suavis and Indulgence, will offer complimentary treatments throughout the evening on a first-come, first-served basis. The indulgent treatments are specifically tailored for the ladies to enjoy including manicures, hand massages, temporary lash extensions and hair blow-outs.
That's not all! Cap off your night by entering the lucky draw for a chance to win prizes including a One-Night Spa Retreat with Hawaiian Hospitality, Carat* London Jewellery, a Mahalo Ladies Cocktail Class for up to 5 persons... and more!
For more event information & how to buy your tickets here is the FB Event page with the details.