0 Anti-internet piracy laws 'infringe human rights'

Laws designed to block access to piracy websites have been thrown further into doubt after a senior advisor to EU judges suggested such measures could infringe human rights.

Uk telegraph

Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón said similar laws in Belgium brought in to force broadband providers to detect and block unlawful filesharing were “a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data”.

He also said such a system would restrict the fundamental right to freedom of information.

Opponents of stronger copyright enforcement online have seized on the opinion. They claim it means laws such as Britain's Digital Economy Act, which grants the government or courts powers to force ISPs to block piracy websites, are illegal.

Ofcom is already investigating the feasibility of the laws, which have never been used.

The Advocate General’s opinion was published as part of an ongoing dispute between Scarlet, a Belgian ISP, and SABAM, a rights holder group.

Scarlet took its case to the European Court of Justice after SABAM won a court order in 2007 which would force it to build a system to identify and block unlawful downloads of copyright material.
Mr Cruz Villalón recommended that the ECJ should overturn the Belgian court order.
“Neither the filtering system, which is intended to be applied on a systematic, universal, permanent and perpetual basis, nor the blocking mechanism, which can be activated without any provision being made for the persons affected to challenge it or object to it, are coupled with adequate safeguards,” he said.
If the court agrees with the Advocate General, it is not clear exactly what impact its ruling would have on the Digital Economy Act’s website blocking provisions.
The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered Ofcom to review the laws in February, saying “it is not clear whether the site blocking provisions in the Act could work in practice”.
At the same time the government opened talks between ISPs and the music industry to encourage a voluntary agreement on a list of websites that would be blocked, which would avoid any need to use the Digital Economy Act.

0 Moving liquefied ground by Earthquake in Japan

In Chiba prefecture next to Tokyo

0 Spammers Continue to Exploit the Disaster in Japan

From Symantec Blog:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/spammers-continue-exploit-disaster-japan

Symantec has blogged previously about spammers exploiting the recent catastrophic situation in Japan. Since then, Symantec has observed additional variations in spam attacks in which the spammers are continuing to exploit the tragedy, even as the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts are in progress. Similar to what we have seen in the past, virus attacks in the form of messages containing links to images in the message body were observed in the third week of March. Such attacks, along with scam emails, are usually prevalent after such disasters have occurred. The subject line and screenshot of a sample message body of the virus attack can be seen below.

Subject: Novo tsunami atinge Sendai e Japao declara estado de emergencia em usina nuclear
[Subject: New tsunami hits Japan Sendai and declares state of emergency in nuclear plant]

As seen in the screenshot above, what appears to be a video is in fact just a link to an image. Once the link is clicked, the user is asked to download and install an executable file (“XAR485849834.exe” – screenshot below) that is malware related to a Brazilian banking Trojan. The link to the image hxxp://xxx.<removed>trade.com/globo.com.html leads the user to download the malware payload from the attacking machine. After it has been successfully installed, the malware gathers the user’s Internet banking details and other sensitive information.

Similar to the sample above, another variation of the spam attack has a message that lures the user into watching a video of the devastating tsunami in Japan. The From and Subject lines of the spam message are below.

From: "Veja o video gravado no momento do tsunami no japao." <tsunami@terra.com.br>
Subject: Veja o video gravado no momento do tsunami no japao.

The English translation of the subject line and body of the spam message (in Portuguese) is below.

Subject: Watch the video recorded at the time of the tsunami in Japan.

Camera man was able to shoot everything
View video

What appears to be a video is again just an image that is composed of a link to the attacking machine that downloads the malware. The IP addresses involved in the above spam attacks are traced back to Brazil.

The scammers have also been exploiting the relief efforts by sending 419 scam emails that have been prevalent ever since the natural disaster took place. In another variation of the Nigerian scam that has been observed recently, the fake message urges people to help the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami while the country is battling a nuclear crisis.

The message lists the various organizations working on relief and recovery in the region. However, towards the end the message, the scammer requests a donation in the form of a wire transfer payment through a popular service. The scammer also asks that the sender emails the complete details of the transaction (as mentioned on the receipt) to an email address that quite obviously belongs to the scammers. Scammers favor wire transfer services because payments are irreversible, untraceable, and require minimal identity checks. The IP address 82.128.7.139—which is involved in the scam email—was traced back to Lagos, Nigeria. This IP has been blacklisted because of its past involvement in such scams.

Symantec recommends that our readers reach out to the earthquake and tsunami victims through legitimate and secure channels so that the help that you send reaches the intended recipients. Moreover, be cautious of downloading certain file types, particularly executables (.exe). Any emails containing or leading to this type of application extension should be considered suspicious, particularly if it's coming from an unknown sender.

2 Bin Laden is dead.....Long live Bin Laden.

Who's keeping the terror myth alive?

In the trigger-happy post-9/11 world, the favoured way to instigate a war is to demand that the designated "evildoer" prove a negative.

Iraq was invaded because it couldn't prove that it didn't have WMDs. Iran is under constant threat of attack unless it can demonstrate that it's not seeking nuclear weapons. And now Pakistan is being chastised for allegedly harbouring Osama bin Laden—who in all probability has been dead and buried for eight years.

But with the hunt for the elusive bin Laden having already cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, perhaps Americans should demand conclusive proof that Israel hasn’t conned them into fighting a phoney “war on terror.”

0 CIA Veteran says Bin Laden is a diversion and not capable of 9/11 attacks

Former CIA official Milt Bearden talks about Bin Ladens non-existent involvement in 911 and how the CIA trained Usama Bin Laden.

I would like to add that everything stated in this video by
Mr Bearden is now admitted by the white house and here are some quotes to confirm that claim;

"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming." —Dick Cheney, "Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow", March 29, 2006 www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html

"9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11." —FBI agent Rex Tomb, June 6, 2006

And to read what Bin Laden himself said concerning 911 one week after 911 go to CNN's official site

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.binladen.denial/
below:

And remember that everything he states here is totally contrary to what is said in the videos that have been proven to be fake of Bin Laden confessing to 911.

0 6 year old girl groped then drug tested by TSA...for your "Protection"

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
April 13, 2011

The parents of a six year old girl who was subjected to an enhanced pat-down at the hands of the TSA appeared confused and disturbed in an interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America today as they called for a change in security procedures.

Selena and Dr. Todd Drexel, of Bowling Green, Ky., were thrust into the spotlight this week after a video of their daughter, Anna, being searched at New Orleans Armstrong International Airport went viral on the internet.

The couple said they allowed the video to be uploaded to Youtube in order to gauge other opinions on the incident which they feel was very wrong.

The video (below) shows the child in some distress as she is intimately probed by a stranger while her parents look on powerless.

LIttle Anna’s reaction to the incident speaks volumes. She was upset and distressed because she thought she had done something wrong and was being punished by the so called authorities. The untainted innocence of the child’s view of the incident tells you that there is something very very wrong with the way millions of Americans are allowing their government to act in the name of security.

To pick out a six year old child a a possible security threat and frisk her for dangerous weapons in an American airport is utterly insane, however it is far from an isolated incident, as we have previously documented.

If anyone else abducted someone’s child and then sexually molested them they would be rightly called a pedophile and locked up for a long time, but when the government does it not only is it deemed acceptable, but it also trains a whole generation of children that being kidnapped by an adult and having their genitals groped is normal.

Parents Say TSA Made It Clear “There Would Be Trouble” If They Refused To Allow 6-Year Old Daughter To Be Groped

0 Racist? Angry? The answer may be in a pill

A pill to enhance moral behaviour; a treatment for racist thoughts; a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries?

These may sound like the stuff of science fiction but, with medicine moving closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book reviewing scientific developments in the field.

Drugs such as Prozac, which alters a patient's mental state, already have an impact on moral behaviour but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.

The field is in its infancy but "it's very far from being science fiction", says the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner, Dr Guy Kahane.

"Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far but it is now becoming a big debate," he says. "There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression."

Researchers have become interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, says a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre, Dr Tom Douglas. He is a co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published this week.

"Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist but we tend not to think of them in that way," he says. "[Prozac] lowers aggression and bitterness against environment and so could be said to make people more agreeable. Or oxytocin, the so-called love hormone ... increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety. Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about."

But would pharmacologically induced altruism, for example, amount to genuine moral behaviour? "We can change people's emotional responses but quite whether that improves their moral behaviour is not something science can answer," Kahane says.

He also admits it is unlikely that people would rush to take a pill that would improve their morals.

"Becoming more trusting, nicer, less aggressive and less violent can make you more vulnerable to exploitation," he says. "On the other hand, it could improve your relationships or help your career."

Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply but does suggest that if administered widely, they might help humanity tackle global issues.

"Relating to the plight of people on the other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature," he says. "This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations."

The chairman in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, Professor Ruud ter Meulen, warns that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, others - and sometimes the same ones - can have the opposite effect.

"While oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group," he says.

He says deep brain stimulation, used for Parkinson's disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases in which patients begin to steal or become sexually aggressive.

Meulen suggests moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. "These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison," he says.

0 Report: FBI device didn't record bomb plot

Prosecutors in the Portland tree lighting bomb plot say the FBI attempt to record the suspect's first words about a plot failed because the recorder died, according to a report in The Oregonian.

The newspaper reports that prosecutors wrote in court documents filed Thursday that other agents still overheard the July 30 conversation between bombing suspect Mohamed Mohamud and an undercover agent.

Mohamud is charged with plotting to detonate a van filled with what he thought were explosives via a remote cell phone trigger during Portland's Christmas Tree Lighting event in Pioneer Courthouse Square. About 10,000 people were gathered in the square that night.

FBI agents arrested Mohamud immediately after they say he attempted to detonate the device. However, Mohamud's lawyers appear to be building a case that the Somali was illegally entrapped.

Mohamud is charged with attempting to ignite a weapon of mass destruction.

Link to original story
http://projectmindwake.blogspot.com/2010/11/oregon-fbi-supply-weapon-of-mass.html

0 UK Home secretary wants plan to collect details of flights in and out of Europe to be expanded to include all flights within EU

Britain is trying to set up an EU-wide network of travel databases to record the movements and personal details of millions of air passengers within Europe

The home secretary, Theresa May, is hoping that, when they meet on Monday, European justice and home affairs ministers will back a massive expansion of EU proposals, which as they stand would apply only to flights in and out of Europe and see travellers' details anonymised after 30 days.

Theresa May, the home secretary, is meeting European justice and home affairs ministers on Monday to discuss proposals for collecting passenger records.

May, who was elected on a pledge to scale back the "database state", has been lobbying hard for the data – known as passenger name records (PNR) – to also be collected for flights within Europe, tripling the number of journeys tracked. She wants the data to be stored for up to six years.

The home secretary has already won the backing of 17 other EU member states for the move but is heading for a civil liberties clash with the European parliament and the German government.

She has argued that the expansion is needed to combat terrorism but critics say it will involve the storage of a huge amount of personal data, leaving room for random profiling.

PNR data is already collected for flights between Europe and America, with the airlines required to pass on passenger booking details to authorities.

The 19 separate items of personal information involved include home address, passport number, credit card details, mobile phone number and the traveller's itinerary.

Read More http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/air-passenger-data-collection-europe

0 Does Government Own Your Remotely Backed Up Computer Files, Your Emails, or Your Cell Phone GPS Info?

Did you know that there are no laws to prevent government agencies from raiding your computer's remotely hosted back up files, your third party emails, your cloud computing files, or your cell phone GPS location records? Well, there aren't.

As the law stands today government can go into your private computer files or trace your cell phone location without a warrant.

As a result of this lapse in protection form unlawful search and seizure a new group of concerned parties intends to change the law with the Digital Fourth Amendment campaign. (http://www.digitalfourthamendment.org/)

The problem is not necessarily that government is out to steal all our computing information, but that the laws have simply not caught up to today's technology. The laws that cover how policing agencies and governments can access your emails, computer files, and cell phone GPS records are currently governed by rules that are decades out of date. These rules were written in the 1980s, long before the Internet came along, before cloud computing was invented, before email, and well before cell phones that could track your whereabouts became pervasive.
You see, today all your personal information that is stored in third party storage space is not considered to be the kind of personal property that would require a court-issued warrant for government to access. If you have email stored at Google, if you use a cloud computing service, or if you have a third party data back up service it is all open for government to view without a warrant because it is in the actual possession of a third party. Currently none of these computer records are considered your private records.
This also holds true for cell phone GPS location records. As the law stands today government can access your cell phone location records and find out where you've been and all without a by your leave from the courts.
The Digital Fourth Amendment campaign aims to change that and bring the laws against unlawful search and seizure into the digital world of the 21st century.

0 You Never Explain Why They Want To Do Us Harm! What's Their Motivation? Helen Thomas

When are the US people...and the World for that matter, going to wake up to this Farce that calls itself.. HOMELAND SECURITY

0 Will Wheaton - Yesterday, I was touched -- in my opinion, inappropriately -- by a TSA agent at LAX"

Wil Wheaton is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie LaChance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. As a writer, he is best known for his blog, Wil Wheaton Dot Net.

The following is taken from his blog posted on the 6th april 2011.

"Yesterday, I was touched -- in my opinion, inappropriately -- by a TSA agent at LAX.

I'm not going to talk about it in detail until I can speak with an attorney, but I've spent much of the last 24 hours replaying it over and over in my mind, and though some of the initial outrage has faded, I still feel sick and angry when I think about it.

What I want to say today is this: I believe that the choice we are currently given by the American government when we need to fly is morally wrong, unconstitutional, and does nothing to enhance passenger safety.

I further believe that when I choose to fly, I should not be forced to choose between submitting myself to a virtually-nude scan (and exposing myself to uncertain health risks due to radiation exposure)¹, or enduring an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his hands in my pants, and makes any contact at all with my genitals."

Read More on his blog here http://wilwheaton.typepad.com

Hopefully his story will change a few public perceptions of the real agenda behind the TSA "Pant-downs" and X-ray Scanners.

Below is what probably should have happened.....never be without your phaser.

0 Massive anti-Israel rally held in Cairo, demands freedom for Gaza.

Over one million Egyptian protesters in Cairo's Liberation square have demanded their military rulers to abandon Israel and lift the blockade on the besieged Gaza strip.
Protesters voiced their anger at Tel Aviv by burning the Israeli flag and demanding the Liberation of Palestine, a Press TV correspondent said.

They promised to stand by Gazans, who have been suffering Israeli attacks and its four-year long crippling siege.

Many protesters headed toward the US Embassy from Liberation Square to protest Israel's deadly attacks on Gaza.

The Israeli flag was torn to pieces, when protesters tried to raise Palestinian flag above the Israeli embassy.

The development comes two months after a historic revolution ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Protesters also demanded the prosecution of officials belonging to the former regime --mainly the ousted president Mubarak and his family.

Egypt's toppled regime under Mubarak served the interests of Israel by assisting and keeping silent on the killing of Gazans.

Egypt has imposed a blockade on Gaza since the democratically elected Hamas government took control of the territory in 2007. Since then Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the territory triggering a humanitarian crisis.

A major Egyptian political party, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), has recently demanded that the country's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces takes action in breaking the siege of Gaza.

Egypt's political parties say the Gaza blockade serves the interests of Israel and the US and threatens regional stability and independence.

This is while Israeli officials have been repeatedly threatening to launch a fresh major offensive against Gaza.

They say such an onslaught could be even more destructive and deadly than the one at the turn of 2009, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians -- many of them women and children.

0 Where's Libya on the map again?....Wow...

RT asked people in the heart of Washington DC who, where and why the US was bombing today.

0 Hydrogen Technology

A new, practical

hydrogen science

for clean

and less expensive

energy solutions:

HyTech's Aquygen™ gas!

0 Drug-carrying robot roams through eye

If you're squeamish, the thought of having a tiny robot in your eye might not appeal. But a new system designed by Bradley Nelson and his team from Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) in Zurich, Switzerland, could lead to more effective drug delivery for conditions like age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in old people.

In the video above, you can see the microbot roam around a deceased pig's eye during a mobility experiment. It was injected with a needle and then maneuvered with a novel electromagnetic system. "The micro-devices can be thought of as magnetic drug reservoirs that can be electro-magnetically controlled to the location of interest on the retina," says Christos Bergeles, a member of the team.

Currently, the most common treatment for macular degeneration is a drug injection into the eye. But the drug quickly diffuses through the retina, requiring regular injections to keep reaching the affected regions. The robot would allow for prolonged and targeted drug release since it can remain in the eye for months. It can also be used to position a biodegradable drug capsule in the eye and then be directly removed with a magnetic needle.

So far, the device has only been tested with pig eyes taken from cadavers. But the team plans to start trials with living animals soon.

If you enjoyed this video, you might also want to see how microbots can be steered with an electric current.

http://www.newscientist.com

0 American Soldiers Are WAKING UP!

Listen to and SUPPORT those American Veterans that are now AWAKE and MAD AS HELL!!
Original maker of this video is http://www.youtube.com/user/StopTheRobbery2

http://www.ivaw.org/about/why-we-are-against-wars

http://www.ivaw.org/

0 Osama bin Laden is 'alive, well, and hunting falcons in Iran', documentary claims

Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in luxury in Iran, it is claimed. That's the astonishing suggestion in a documentary to be shown at a film festival in New York.

Bin Laden has been housed in a guarded compound north of Tehran with his wife, several children and grandchildren since 2003, protected by the Iranian regime, according to Feathered Cocaine, an Icelandic film about the illicit multi-million-dollar trade in falcons.

In the film, a disguised falcon smuggler from the former Soviet Union identified only as 'T-2' says he first met bin Laden in 2004 at a falcon-hunting camp in northeastern Iran.

'I met him five times after 2004,' says the smuggler.

'The last time we met was in October 2007. Every time, it was in Iran.'

Falcon hunting is an exclusive hobby practised by some of the richest men in the Middle East, who travel to luxurious desert retreats to pursue the sport. A bird’s value can reach one million dollars.

The claim contradicts the common theory that bin Laden is living in an isolated network of fortified caves somewhere in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is also at odds with the assumption by many that he is dead.

His son Omar bin Laden, who married a British woman and broke with his father before the 9/11 attacks, revealed last year that seven of his siblings were living in Tehran and trying to leave.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed the claim - and, apparently sarcastically, counter-claimed that bin Laden is hiding in Washington, D.C.

He told ABC News: 'Your question is laughable. Our position is quite clear.

'Some journalists have said bin Laden is in Iran. These words don't have legal value. Our position towards Afghanistan and against terrorism is quite clear... I don't know such a thing. You are giving news which is very strange.

'I heard that Osama bin Laden is in Washington, D.C.,' he added.

'Yes, I did. He's there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the only person that's actually telling the factual truth...it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

EVIDENCE:

Osama bin Laden, A.K.A.
CIA Asset "Tim Osman"

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/binladen_cia.html

CIA-Osama bin Laden controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy

Who is Osama Bin Laden

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

Fidel Castro claims Osama bin Laden is a US spy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/27/fidel-castro-osama-bin-laden-us-spy

The Power of Nightmares Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave - by Adam Curtis

The Power of Nightmares assesses whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. In the concluding part of the series, the programme explains how the illusion was created and who benefits from it.

In the wake of the shock and panic created by the devastating attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September, 2001, the neo-conservatives reconstructed the radical Islamists in the image of their last evil enemy, the Soviet Union - a sinister web of terror run from the centre by Osama Bin Laden in his lair in Afghanistan.

There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas, and who will use the techniques of mass terror - the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear.

But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.

Wherever one looks for this al-Qaeda organisation, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the "sleeper cells" in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.

But the reason that no-one questions the illusion is because this nightmare enemy gives so many groups new power and influence in a cynical age - and not just politicians.

Those with the darkest imaginations have now become the most powerful.

In part one, the programme looked at the origins of the neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists in the 1950s.

The second part of the series examined how the radical Islamists and neo-conservatives came together to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The Power of Nightmares was broadcast over three nights from Tuesday 18 to Thursday, 20 January, 2005 at 2320 GMT on BBC Two. The final part has been updated in the wake of the Law Lords ruling in December that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial was illegal.

0 Substance in Gulf of Mexico likely sediment, not oil

(Reuters) - A reported "sheen" in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana is likely the result of large amounts of sediment, not spilled oil, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Sunday.

The Coast Guard collected and tested samples of a dark substance after receiving varying reports on Saturday of possible pollution floating on and beneath the water's surface. The largest sighting described the substance as stretching 100 miles into the Gulf, south of Grand Isle, Louisiana.
An analysis found only trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease -- all at levels well within the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's clean water standard.
Sediment carried down the Mississippi River and possibly agitated by dredging is believed to have caused the dark substance, according to a Coast Guard news release.
The Coast Guard also investigated on Sunday an oily substance washing up along the Louisiana shoreline.
Samples of that substance will be tested. It is not suspected to be residual oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in April.

http://www.reuters.com

0 SolarEagle unmanned plane able to remain in the air for five years

A SOLAR-POWERED plane which can fly continuously for five years may seem like a flight of fancy. But a Newcastle University team has the job of turning the vision into reality.

Artist's Impression

Led by Professor Barrie Mecrow, the team has secured a major contract with leading defence technology and security company QinetiQ to help create the US-based Boeing SolarEagle.

Joint funded by the US Government and Boeing, SolarEagle will be a 120-metre wing span, unmanned plane able to remain in the air for five years, feeding back data from the skies.

It is the job of the Newcastle University team to develop a motor that will be four times more efficient than a conventional aircraft engine while being able to operate at temperatures lower than the coldest Arctic winter.

Prof Mecrow, head of the university’s Centre for Advanced Electrical Drives, said: “This plane will have the longest wingspan ever – the only thing that comes close is the Airbus A380 with a wingspan of around 75m. This is more than half as big again – more than the length of a football pitch.

“Newcastle University has a long-standing reputation for its world-leading research into the design and development of specialist motors and electronics but this will still be a big challenge for us.

“In general, the more powerful a motor, the bigger and heavier it is. In this case, the motor will have to be powerful enough to drive the propellers to get this gigantic plane off the ground while still being super-efficient and incredibly lightweight.

“The work is particularly challenging because the plane will be flying at a height of more than 60,000 feet where temperatures can be below minus 60 degrees and conventional systems stop working.”

This is the second time the team has played a part in making aviation history.

QinetiQ’s Zephyr

Last year they played a key role in the development of QinetiQ’s Zephyr – a much smaller unmanned aerial vehicle which successfully completed a world record two weeks of non-stop flight powered only by energy from the sun.

Smashing all endurance records for an unpiloted vehicle, the Zephyr was the culmination of years of work by some of the world’s most talented engineers including the team from Newcastle University.

The aircraft is being developed under the Vulture II programme, which will culminate with a demonstration flight in 2014 but the Newcastle team hopes to have the first two prototypes of the plane’s motors ready to test in six months.

Prof Mecrow said: “At Newcastle we are building on half a century of experience that grew around heavy industry.

“Today, more than half of all electrical energy generated in the world is used to drive motors and we are working on ways of making this process ever more efficient.”

Read More http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/environment-news/2011/03/09/university-on-flight-path-61634-28302388/#ixzz1G6BlR0JU

0 The Greater Good Movie Trailer

THE GREATER GOOD looks behind the fear, hype and politics that have polarized the vaccine debate in America today. The film re-frames the emotionally charged issue and offers, for the first time, the opportunity for a rational and scientific discussion on how to create a safer and more effective vaccine program.

IF this at the very least makes you makes you aware that there are dangers involved.....it's a good start.

0 Is someone hiding the fountain of youth??!!

David Rockefeller, Sr. (born June 12, 1915)

0 Who benefits?

0 Iran sends Navy fleet to Gulf of Aden

The Iranian Navy has dispatched its thirteen fleet of warships to the piracy-ridden waters of the Gulf of Aden in a bid to guard Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers.

"The thirteen fleet of warships, comprised of Tonb and Delvar vessels is tasked with boosting security for Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers in the Gulf of Aden and north of the Indian Ocean for a period of 60 days," IRNA quoted Commander of Iran's First Naval Zone Fariborz Qaderpanah as saying on Thursday.

The Iranian military commander also hailed the successful passage of the 12th fleet of warships through the Suez Canal and to the Mediterranean Sea in late January --the first ever journey following Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution .

"Over the course of the last two years, the Iranian fleet of warships has successfully managed to display its powerful presence in turmoil-stricken Gulf of Aden, and foil any attempt to impair transportation routes along the country's sea border" Qaderpanah added.

The Iranian Navy has so far dispatched a number of military warships to the Gulf of Aden to guard Iranian and foreign vessels sailing in international waters.

The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship MV Delight off the coast of Yemen.

The Gulf of Aden -- which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea -- is an important energy corridor, particularly because the Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West through the Suez Canal.

According to US Department of Energy estimates, the water way is the quickest transit point for ships laden with some 3.3 million barrels of crude -- almost 4% of daily global demand.

I am really starting to believe something really strange is/has been going on in the Gulf of Aden for quite a while....

Please Please give the information below some serious thought before you dismiss it...

truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction.

BELOW LINKED FROM http://www.attainablemind.com/2010/02/stargate-in-gulf-of-aden.html

Stargate in the Gulf of Aden

There is a new subject that has come to light on the internet. That a real Stargate has been found, and it's seven miles underground in the Gulf of Aden in an underground military base. It's also said that it's recently been activated.

The Gulf of Aden as you may know has been in the news quite a bit lately. This is where Somalia Pirates have been hanging out, also known as "Pirate Ally". In response to all of these Pirates the UN Council voted to enable countries to send warship to the area. So Nato, England, Russia, China, India, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Switzerland, United States and others have all sent warships to the area. Even the US Mercenary force Blackwater who has their own warship, was sent there as well.

OK, so long time enemy's sharing the same waters, all over Pirates with a few rocket launchers in fishing boats?? Something doesn't fit.

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PHOTO ESSAY ~~ PALESTINIAN NATIONAL UNITY DAY IN NEW YORK

0 Bahrain police killing people by drive by shootings

Police killer brutality. They are massacring protesters . This happened today Sitra 16th March

Thankyou to a Bahrani Citizen for this video.

0 Selective Attention Test

0 ZIONISTS WON'T LET YOU SEE THIS ON YOUR TV

here is the truth behind the middle east conflict.

ask yourself: Why aren't Americans shown these honest facts on any of the over 1,700 major media outlets?

and WHAT OTHER INFO IS BEING WITHELD?

Rachel Corrie: 'a true hero' was killed by the state of Israel, and by its brutal regime that practises not only 'mass punishment' but also 'ethnic cleansing'. The same regime that has displaced over 4 million Palestinians, and killed many thousands. The same regime that has denied the right to self-determination to the Palestinian people.

A regime that systematically destroys the lives of innocents every single DAY.

0 Japan Earthquake: before and after

Click pic to view the photos and move the sliders to

view before and after versions

Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

0 Battle: Los Angeles with Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez brings the Battle: Los Angeles to Attack of the Show where she sits down with Kevin Pereira to talk about fighting aliens, her theories on the apocalypse and more, well worth a watch.....

0 Japanese volcano erupts

A volcano in southwestern Japan erupted Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometres (two and a half miles) into the air, a local official says.

It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami and sparking fears that more than 10,000 may have been killed.

Smoke rises from Shinmoedake peak, a mountain in the Kirishima volcanic range between Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures.

The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1.

Authorities have maintained a volcano warning at a level of three out of five, restricting access to the entire mountain.

In April last year, the eruption of the Eyjafjoell volcano in Iceland dispersed a vast cloud of ash, triggering a huge shutdown of airspace that affected more than 100,000 flights and eight million passengers.

1 Could hackers crash your car’s computer — and your car, too?

Could modern cars operating with the help of internal computers be vulnerable to hackers?

Could someone tamper with your software-controlled brakes or stop the engine from afar?

The familiar problem for personal computers is being studied in automobiles as internal computer networks become as critical to vehicles as tires and engines, and as auto companies push to bring the Internet to motorists.
Two researchers demonstrated the ability last year to hack into the internal networks that operate a car’s brakes and engines. While there is no evidence that anyone has hacked into auto computer systems to compromise safety or steal vehicles, industry groups are studying the issue in hopes of getting ahead of future cyber-attacks.
“When people first started connecting their PCs to the Internet, there wasn’t any threat and then over time it manifests,” said Stefan Savage, a University of California, San Diego, computer science professor who conducted the research. “The automotive industry, I think, has the benefit of the experience of what we went through.”

As vehicles are increasingly computerized, researchers and industry officials consider it inevitable that cars will face the same vulnerabilities as PCs. Internal computer networks monitor and control everything from brakes, engines and transmissions to air bags and keyless entry functions. Wireless connections, meanwhile, are becoming more common in reporting a vehicle’s position or providing information about the car’s functions. Some auto companies are creating applications to allow users to control some features in their car with their smart phones.
In a paper presented at a computer security conference last year, Savage and Yoshi Kohno, a computer science professor at the University of Washington, described how research teams were able to “bypass rudimentary network security protections within the car” and “adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input — including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine and so on.” The research team also showed how an attack could embed malicious code in a vehicle and then erase any evidence of its presence after a crash.
In a new study, they found ways to compromise security remotely, through wireless interfaces like Bluetooth, mechanics’ tools and even audio files. In one example, a modified song in a digital audio format could compromise the car’s CD player and infect other systems in the vehicle. They were also able to “obtain complete control” over the car by placing a call to the vehicle’s cell phone number and playing an audio signal that compromised the vehicle.
Other reviews have raised similar red flags.

Research teams at Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina showed vulnerabilities of in-car wireless networks that operate tire pressure monitoring systems that tell motorists if their tire needs more air. From a distance of 40 meters (131 feet), they bypassed security to tap into information identifying the tire and tire pressure of cars driving down the road.
The auto industry has taken notice. Jack Pokrzywa, who manages ground vehicle standards for the Society of Automotive Engineers International, said the industry formed a panel to investigate the issue during the past month and hopes to develop common standards and ways to address hacking within the next year. “The industry is certainly concerned about this,” Pokrzywa said.
“Things can be done, if there is a mindset to do this, and with all the electronic devices and the software running them, it’s kind of inevitable that someone will find a way,” Pokrzywa said. “These systems are not built with firewalls upon firewalls.”
The United States Council for Automotive Research, a group funded by Detroit’s auto companies, is also forming a task force to study the issue, said spokeswoman Susan Bairley.
Researchers say they do not want to be alarmist and note that in many cases it required coordinated efforts to bypass the security systems. Kohno said their research was the result of two years of work and “the risk of this happening in the real world is extremely low.” But Kohno and others said the industry was wise in trying to build in more protections to avoid the hacking scenarios common with personal computers.
“I hope it’s more of a warning for the engineering groups that certain systems are vulnerable,” said Ivan Seskar, associate director for information technology at the Wireless Information Network Laboratory at Rutgers University.

By KEN THOMAS Associated Press