Presidential election to pass $2B fundraising mark (cbsnews)

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Libyan suspect in U.S. envoy attack killed in Cairo

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Libyan militant suspected by Egypt of involvement in last month's attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya has been killed during a raid by Egyptian security forces in Cairo, a security official said on Thursday.

The Libyan was killed on Wednesday in a raid targeting him and other militants with suspected links to al Qaeda in Cairo's eastern district of Nasr City, the official said. Four Egyptian militants were detained in the operation, he added.

The Libyan, identified as Karim Ahmed Essam el-Azizi, was killed by a bomb he had tried to use against the security forces during the raid, the security official said.

It was not immediately clear what role Azizi had played in the assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on September 11, in which the ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed.

The security official, who asked not to be named, said Azizi had been living in a rented apartment in Nasr City for the past three months. He said police had found 15 bombs and various weapons, including assault rifles, in the Libyan's flat.

The attack on the Benghazi consulate has become a highly politicized issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

It occurred during a wave of Muslim protest over an anti-Islam film produced in California, which also sparked violence against U.S. diplomatic missions in Tunisia and Egypt.

However, official emails obtained by Reuters showed that the White House and State Department were advised two hours after the consulate attack that an Islamist militant group had claimed responsibility.

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have acknowledged that the attack was a "terrorist" act by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba and Yasmine Saleh, Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-suspect-u-envoy-attack-killed-cairo-130308023.html

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New York's Mayor on Everything From Campaign Money to Circumcision (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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U.S. knew too little to deploy troops to Benghazi: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon defended its decision not to deploy forces to Benghazi, Libya, as soon as the U.S. mission came under attack on September 11th, saying it would have been irresponsible to put forces in harm's way without better information.

President Barack Obama's response to the attacks in Libya has been a contentious issue in the hard-fought U.S. presidential race, with Republican opponents raising questions about his administration's truthfulness and competence.

Obama supporters have in turn accused Republicans of making unfounded accusations in an effort to score political points from the death of a U.S. ambassador and the three others killed in the Benghazi attack.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican John Boehner, asked in a letter to Obama on Thursday about whether military options and assets were offered "during and in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack."

"Can you explain what options were presented to you or your staff, and why it appears assets were not allowed to be pre-positioned, let alone utilized?" Boehner asked.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Pentagon reporters that U.S. forces were on a heightened state of alert already because of the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by al Qaeda.

But he said there simply wasn't enough information to responsibly deploy forces to Libya at the time of the attack.

"You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place," Panetta said.

Lacking that information, Panetta said he, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Carter Ham, head of the U.S. military's Africa Command, felt they couldn't "put forces at risk in that situation."

"This happened within a few hours and it was really over before, you know, we had the opportunity to really know what was happening," Panetta said.

In the aftermath of the attack, Panetta reminded reporters that the Pentagon deployed a Marine fleet anti-terrorist security team to Tripoli and had Navy ships off the coast.

"And we were prepared to respond to any contingency. And certainly had forces in place to do that," he said.

The administration initially attributed the violence to protests over an anti-Islam film and said it was not premeditated. Obama and other officials have since said the incident was a deliberate terrorist attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has attributed the shifting explanation to "the fog of war."

A State Department email made public this week showed that two hours after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission compound in Benghazi, the Department's Operations Center advised officials at various U.S. agencies that a militant group called Ansar al-Sharia had claimed credit on Twitter and Facebook for the attacks.

U.S. officials, including Clinton, on Wednesday said that such Internet postings did not constitute hard evidence of who was responsible for the attacks.

The State Department has set up an independent review board to investigate the background and response to the attacks.

The U.S. Senate intelligence committee on Thursday said it will hold hearings in November - after the November 6 presidential election - on security and intelligence issues raised by the September 11 attack in Libya.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Jim Loney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-knew-too-little-deploy-troops-benghazi-pentagon-213540443.html

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Home Improvement Suggestions That May Add To Your | Home Town

Why do you want to redecorate your home? Numerous would like to affect the way their home appears. Others do it hoping economic compensate due to increased property benefit. Many people get wonderful satisfaction away from actual labor. Regardless of the purpose, these are generally great tips that can help.

If you want to get imaginative with the appearance of your wall surfaces you can go with a stencil to incorporate your own private handyman pretoria feel. You can find these in stores and on-line or you can help make your very own. See your business office supply retailer to have the copy laminated and then lower them out. Spot your stencil in the walls utilizing painter?s adhesive tape, utilize the fresh paint and place another stencil beneath the old one particular, converting when needed to finish the style during the entire place.

In case a professional informs you they will likely finish off the work with time period of time which is not realistic, will not use him. Installers have numerous reasons to finish work quickly. They frequently are operating on several properties. When you?re overpaying to the job done, you?ll not be happy with the circumstance.

Use fruit and flowers to brighten up your house. Fruit or possibly a wonderful blossom agreement can perk any kitchen up. This low-cost fix can lighten up any kitchen easily. A vase filled up with fresh refreshing blooms instantaneously raises your feeling and the design of the kitchen, even on the dreariest of time.

Whenever you are organizing any major upgrades, it can be crucial not to forget about your permits. Unless you know which permits you require, make contact with your nearby city local authority or council or recruit the help of a professional.

If you have sustained by way of a all-natural failure and you are looking for a contractor, be wary of cons. There are lots of dishonest people available who like to benefit from crisis situations. Do a lot of analysis prior to hiring one to do maintenance.

If you want to increase your property, however, you aren?t confident how to proceed, talk with a contractor. They can provide you with recommendations on whatever you can increase to acquire one of the most bang for your buck.

You will need to pay out limited for quickly home improvement work. The licensed contractor would like it if he was paid out a ton to get the job done. Understand they are excited because are entitled to and anticipate extra! That?s since it?s now a dash job.

Ensure you look at the agreement before you sign. It may look like a great deal of details, but you should know all things in the contract is okay along. There?s absolutely nothing a whole lot worse here than becoming taken benefit from from a dodgy contractor over to whole milk you. While you might believe in him, be sure you see the contract.

When initially speaking to a service provider, be sure to get a composed commitment that features what ever your finances is along with a thorough plan of methods they will invest the amount of money you allow them. You?ll want it to set out the expense of products along with their labor, when it will likely be completed, and just how payment will occur.

Home improvement projects are very well-known for several motives. There is certainly generally some thing to get carried out around the house. Making use of the proper suggestions from this post will help guide you to creating your home look fantastic.

Source: http://theperpetualbeta.com/accounting/home-improvement-suggestions-that-may-add-to-your/

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Measuring table-top accelerators' state-of-the-art beams: Slicing through the electron beam

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2012) ? Wim Leemans of Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division heads LOASIS, the Laser and Optical Accelerator Systems Integrated Studies, an oasis indeed for students pursuing graduate studies in laser plasma acceleration (LPA). Among the most promising applications of future table-top accelerators are new kinds of light sources, in which their electron beams power free electron lasers.

"If our LPA electron bunches had good enough quality for free electron lasers -- and were really only femtoseconds long -- we should see a particular kind of radiation called coherent optical transition radiation, or COTR," Leemans says. "So I assigned my doctoral student Chen Lin, a graduate of Peking University and now a postdoc there, to find it."

Jeroen van Tilborg of LOASIS worked with Lin on the experiment. "Free electron lasers and other applications require energy spreads even lower than the few-percent level that has been measured in LPAs, which doesn't sound promising," he says. "But in a free electron laser, it's the energy spread in a longitudinal slice that matters. Slice-energy spread is local, as distinct from variation among all electron energies anywhere in the pulse."

If the team could find coherent optical transition radiation in the beam, it would be a direct measure of slice-energy spread. This kind of optical radiation is emitted when a pulse of near-light-speed electrons crosses the boundary between states with different electrical properties -- in this case, the boundary between vacuum and an ultrathin Mylar foil.

However, Van Tilborg says, "COTR had only recently been observed in LPA beams and wasn't thought useful for diagnosis." Sure enough, says Leemans, "At first Chen said 'It doesn't work.' But she kept at it."

The team devised a three-step process. The first step was to manipulate the electron beams inside the accelerator to induce modulations in momentum. If the momentum modulations could be preserved, it would be an indication of a low slice-energy spread. Monitoring the beam structure would be a way of calculating the spread in the slice.

The first step turned out to be easier than anticipated, Leemans says. "We found that when the drive laser pulse overlaps the electron beam pulse that it's accelerating, the frequency of the drive laser itself induces correlated momentum modulations in the electron pulse. It's a well-known phenomenon that is widely used in conventional accelerators to aid with bunch compression."

Conventional free electron lasers routinely monitor microbunching by means of coherent optical transition radiation, but using the technique with LPAs had not been tried before because many people thought the density modulations would disappear as the beam spread and diverged. Part of the solution was counterintuitive -- moving the diagnostic foils much farther away from the accelerator.

"In the next step we allowed the beam to travel through a vacuum for several meters," says van Tilborg. "The differences in momentum caused the electrons to collect at different densities, creating microstructure in the pulse. The initial momentum modulations of the beam had now been converted to density modulations."

After traveling two meters, the beam encountered the first of two Mylar foils. Crossing the first vacuum/Mylar interface, it generated the expected optical-transition radiation -- and generated it again at the second foil, almost four meters distant. Photons from both COTR emissions were recorded by CCD cameras. Finally the electron pulse itself was recorded on a phosphor screen.

"From theoretical calculations, we know what the pattern of optical transition radiation should be," van Tilborg says, noting that the coherent regime can be identified by smaller structures on the CCD image and an enhancement in particle counts. "If the micromodulations survive the long trip -- due to a small slice energy spread -- then the second coherent contribution will also appear. So where there's microstructure in the pulse, there is strong enhancement."

Energy spread and beam divergence had not washed out the micromodulations, with the result that, van Tilborg says, "A slice-energy-spread diagnostic had now become available to us." In a series of experiments testing different conformations of the accelerator, the lowest energy spread resulted from high-energy electrons in high-density plasma.

"Pulse structure depended on the fine tuning of several factors," van Tilborg says, "including plasma density, bunch charge" -- the number of electrons in the pulse -- "and letting the electron pulse travel the right distance for self-bunching to occur."

Another factor was how well the drive-laser pulse overlapped with the accelerated electron pulse, but, van Tilborg says, "We don't really need the overlap to occur in the same plasma channel where the electron beam is produced and accelerated. We can use other ways of 'seeding' the microstructure of the pulse. From what we've learned, we can design much better diagnostics in the future."

The experiment showed that local energy spread in an LPA can be a lot smaller than a few percent. In some of the cases measured, it was less than half a percent.

"These experiments not only show that laser-plasma accelerators already produce very high-quality electron beams," say Geddes, "they also gives us the physics insight into how particles are trapped in the wake and then modulated within it, allowing us to move closer to using these new, compact machines for physics and other applications."

Leemans says, "Both the Plateau and Lin experiments use radiation emission from the LPA-produced electron beams -- some in the x-ray window, some in the visible light regime -- to tell the story of what the electrons in the beam look like -- one detected inside the accelerator, the other outside it."

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Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/CUO6stxA9XA/121024150753.htm

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Shares for rights is a Westminster, not real world, plan

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In his speech to the Conservative Party conference earlier this month, the Chancellor unveiled a ?100million ?employee-owner? scheme that will allow shares worth ?2,000 to ?50,000 to be exempt from tax if employees give up certain work rights, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal.

George Osborne said the measure was aimed at the tens of thousands of small and medium-sized firms and would allow businesses hiring staff to insist they forfeit employment rights in two broad areas in exchange for the shares, which would be exempt from capital-gains tax. Existing employees would have the right to refuse.

There has been some support for the proposal, including from the Director General of the IoD, but my view is that the scheme lacks cohesion. It is early days and little detail has been released so far, perhaps my concerns will be allayed, but for what they are worth, here they are.

Under the policy, employees would:

• Give up their rights under UK law on unfair dismissal, redundancy and the right to request flexible working and time off for training;
• Women would have to give twice as much notice of the date when they want to return from maternity leave. Women currently have to give eight weeks, but this would increase to 16.

This is likely to have a disproportionate effect on women. So at a time that many firms are adopting flexible working practices to enable working parents to juggle the complexities of modern life, this scheme may well limit parents? ability to work and care for their children. At the heart of this point lies the question that if businesses are moving towards more flexible working practices why do we need legislation to prevent what appears to be a popular practice?

John Timpson of shoe repair fame, says the policy is based on a misconception ?that employee shares are a magic wand?.

?It is, quite rightly, fashionable to admire the John Lewis Partnership, but their success isn?t just due to the share structure,? he says. ?Share ownership doesn?t in itself create a more committed workforce. In many small businesses, like ours, it is much better to award a significant bonus based on profits than create the complications that come with issuing equity.?

In my view the main stumbling block in the policy is the question of equity, and what it will actually mean to the employee. How many employees will have the experience to quantify their equity and the potential upsides and downsides? How easy will this be to assess particularly if they are desperate to work?

And assuming that the value of shares and apportionment can be agreed (good luck with a start-up) what happens when the employee wants to sell their shares? Has Mr Osborne ever tried to sell a minority interest in a privately held business? The policy appears to be predicated on the shares being liquid, as they are in a listed business, but this is not the case. What investor would want to purchase ?2,000 worth of shares in a privately owned business?

The policy aims to cut regulation to enable business owners to focus on trading but what happens when employers and employees get into disputes regarding the shares? value or the employees? ability to sell the shares? What happens on an employee leaving? There will be significant amounts of time and money spent on lawyers? bills, corporate finance fees and the like.

As someone who works in the corporate finance industry I would be quite happy to charge for valuations and negotiation services but to be frank, what a waste of time. The fees and management cost are going to rival / outweigh the current cost of employment disputes.

The idea of the scheme is to free up business owners to make investment decisions. But for most businesses ? and particularly services businesses ? employees are the biggest investment. How are you going to attract top talent if you cannot give them basic employment assurances?

Many employees are just that for a reason. They are not entrepreneurs. They do not want the risks associated with being an entrepreneur and favour the relative security of employment. This policy is aimed at the SME market and especially start-ups. But bear in mind that approximately one in three start-ups fail in their first three years. So any employee taking on the shares could well be left with a handful of nothing.

It could be that these questions are answered in due course when further detail is released, but for the moment it appears that the plan has been devised by people who have spent their careers in Westminster, not in the boardroom and certainly not on the shop floor.

Tom McCarthy advises on Mergers & Acquisitions for?www.odysseycf.com?and is Chairman of the Bristol Institute of Directors?www.iod.com

Source: http://www.bristol247.com/2012/10/24/shares-for-rights-is-a-westminster-not-real-world-plan-46115/

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Survey team confirms tornado caused damage in Elk Grove

ELK GROVE, Calif. (KCRA) ?

Four tornadoes touched down across Northern California on Monday, and nearly tied a single-day record dating to 1996, the National Weather Service said.

A fifth tornado, which was?believed?to have occurred, was ruled out by the weather service late Tuesday.

Thunderstorms were expected again Tuesday and Wednesday as part of the first series of storms of the season, but they were not expected to produce the same dangerous turbulence.

On Tuesday,?a survey team from the National Weather Service determined that one of those tornadoes caused damage in Elk Grove on Monday, said Dan Keeton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

"We followed the path over here and we've come and we've seen a lot of roof damage in this area," Keeton told KCRA 3 on Tuesday.

Keeton said his team observed, "some trees down, some fairly large trees snapped over and the way the debris is lined up on the ground, it's indicating to us it's a rotating storm,"

"We're estimating the winds that did this kind of damage were between 90 and 100 miles per hour," Keeton told KCRA 3.

Photos: Weather service confirms Elk Grove tornado

There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the Central Valley through Wednesday before things dry out Thursday. A winter weather advisory was in effect for Tuesday night in the Sierra Nevada, with up to seven more inches of snow expected. Snow showers on Wednesday might add another two inches

In a preliminary report issued on Monday, the National Weather Service said tornadoes were reported south of Yuba City in Sutter County, near Palermo in Butte County, near Browns Valley in Yuba County, at Higgins Corner in Nevada County and south of Elk Grove.

Source: http://www.kcra.com/news/Survey-team-confirms-tornado-caused-damage-in-Elk-Grove/-/11797728/17095180/-/rliag7/-/index.html?absolute=true

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Why Domestic Violence Occurs and How to Stop It - Huffington Post

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and with domestic violence on the rise, it is an important time to face this difficult issue. This year, the nationwide Mary Kay Truth About Abuse Survey showed that "8 out of 10 domestic violence shelters nationwide reported an increase in women seeking help." The economy has had an effect. Not only is demand up while "funding, services and prevention efforts are down," but the survey went on to report that "74 percent of women stayed with an abuser longer for economic reasons, [and] 58 percent of shelters reported that the abuse is more violent now than before the economic downturn."

While financial factors contribute to the problem, the causes of domestic violence involve psychological issues that we must deal with in order to stop the cycle of abuse. There are two emotional dynamics that contribute greatly to domestic violence. One involves a destructive thought process (or "critical inner voice") that abusers experience both toward themselves and their partners, thoughts like "You're not a man if you don't control her," or "She is making a fool out of you." The other factor involves a harmful illusion of connection between a couple, what my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, has referred to as a "fantasy bond." This dynamic feeds into a sense that another person can make you whole and is responsible for your happiness. These two dangerous belief systems set up an environment for abuse.

While women are more likely to experience domestic violence, forms of abuse occur between all kinds of couples, whether of the opposite or same sex, married or unmarried. In fact, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief in 2003, "Men account for approximately 15 percent of the victims of reported intimate partner violence." However, in the many cases in which men become violent toward women, it's valuable to examine certain societal attitudes toward men that are destructive and can increase instances of violence.

While many advances have been made toward creating equality between the sexes, we still live in a patriarchal society. Expectations that men should be strong, masculine, and more powerful than women can be very destructive to a man at risk for becoming violent. The shame triggered by the idea that they are appearing weak or unmanly can trigger some men to become enraged or to act on violent impulses.

Being challenged by a relationship partner can be distressing, arousing fear and anger for some people. In these instances, whether they are experiencing an insult, a perceived threat, or an extreme provocation, both men and women who engage in domestic violence are very often acting on their "critical inner voice." This "voice" is a destructive thought process in which people are telling themselves negative things about themselves and their partners. The more a person listens to these thoughts, the more they feed feelings of being wronged and of needing to retaliate, sometimes escalating to a point of becoming violent. Examples of such thoughts include:

• "She/he is controlling you. Don't let her/him act like you are weak."
• "She/he is making fun of you. Who does she/he think she/he is?"
• "How dare he/ she treat you this way! If he/she really loved you he/she would..."
• "She's/he's probably cheating on you. You are such a sucker."

In addition to listening to this critical inner voice, couples involved in domestic violence have often forged a destructive connection, an illusion that they cannot live without each other. There is a feeling of merged identity between the couple, in which both partners do not feel they can stand on their own without the other. This illusion contributes to what we call a "fantasy bond." This unhealthy feeling of fusion makes it difficult for a couple to break free from the relationship, even after it has become hostile or dangerous. It also makes it easier for a couple to abuse each other, as they begin to see each other as extensions of themselves and not as separate individuals who they are hurting.

The formation of a fantasy bond further encourages the attitude that one person can define or victimize another person in some way. It also supports the idea that one partner in a couple has power or control over the other. Thus, people are more likely to feel entitled, mistreated, and righteous in their anger toward their partner. It sets the stage for rejection to be experienced as potentially life-threatening, intensifying reactions to any perceived threat of abandonment. A person may feel desperate to get the partner "back in line" because of feelings of not being able to live without him or her. The lack of personal responsibility, separateness, and accountability that results from a fantasy bond can provide a gateway to acting out emotional or physical abuse.

If we want to prevent domestic violence, we have to look at what works. San Francisco's Manalive program has been successful in teaching male prisoners and domestic violence offenders in the community techniques to identify when they get triggered and to hit the "pause button" at those moments of stress. These men are then able to make more reasonable decisions in terms of their behavior. The program directly challenges the destructive thoughts and critical inner voices that feed aggressive behaviors.

This approach involves a person taking 100 percent responsibility for his or her actions. It means identifying the moments when they are triggered and realizing that no matter how provoked or infuriated they might feel toward their partner, these emotions will not kill them. The program teaches them about the division in themselves between a real self and an "anti-self" (incorporated from their own early experiences of violence). They learn that at those moments of stress when they get triggered, they have a choice -- they can either stay with the open, vulnerable side of themselves or act out the defended "hit man identity" they've incorporated by identifying with the person or persons who abused them as children.

These individuals learn to calm themselves down and not get swept up in the barrage of critical inner voices, feeding their aggressive feelings and even instructing them to act out violence. They learn to recognize and acknowledge their feelings and to take responsibility by not acting on them, and instead acting in their best interest. They develop the ability to have an equal dialogue with their partner by asking their partner for what they want from them, rather than expecting or demanding that the other person meet their needs.

We are all capable of being who we want to be in our relationships. Help is available for both victims and perpetrators of abuse. Programs like Manalive have helped rehabilitate men who've been violent by helping them get to know their real self, teaching them to recognize their emotions, and enabling them to feel compassion and forgiveness for themselves and others. They gain a sense of themselves as separate individuals, thus cultivating self-esteem, responsibility and empathy. They learn effective strategies for recognizing when they get triggered and for not going down the destructive cycle toward violence, steering away from listening to their dangerous critical inner voice and instead staying in the point of view of their real self

Many people who commit abuse were either abused themselves as children or witnessed abuse between family members. To break this cycle and to reduce the cases of domestic violence in the generations to come, we have to implement programs that are effective and help violent perpetrators get the knowledge and help they need to not create the next generation of violent individuals in their children. Rehabilitation programs that emphasize self-reflection, self-control, and empathy, and that build resilience, can allow them instead to offer their children love, concern and tenderness. That way, even in times of economic strain, people will have the psychological understanding and coping skills to avoid turning to violence.

If you or a loved one is in trouble, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline -1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

On Nov. 12, you can attend a free Webinar with Dr. Lisa Firestone, featuring violence expert Dr. James Gilligan on "Why Does Violence Occur and How Can We Prevent It?"
Learn more or register here

Read more from Dr. Lisa Firestone at PsychAlive.org

For more by Lisa Firestone, click here.

For more healthy living health news, click here.

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Follow Lisa Firestone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PsychAlive

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-firestone/domestic-violence-awareness_b_2000652.html

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'Unstoppable' hackers make online banking iffy

By Bob Sullivan

Have some critical online banking transactions to do? You might want to plan them for a Monday or Friday.? A group of malicious hackers is having its way with online banks lately, seemingly knocking sites offline at will.? The latest victims are HSBC and Ally Bank, but virtually every major bank has been targeted by the group since the attacks began five weeks ago.?

The attacks seem straight out of a movie plot: An anonymous note is posted online -- usually on a Monday or early Tuesday -- declaring that week's victims. The targets then are besieged at some point during that Tuesday through Thursday stretch. On Friday, the group seems to rest.

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"Do you want attacks to be stopped? Stop the insults," the group declared in last week's warning message. "Insults" refers to the now infamous "Innocence of Muslims" online video that was initially blamed for last month?s mob attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. (This week?s attack targets, if there are any, have not yet been published). ?

The bank attacks are remarkable because they seem unstoppable, even with advance warning. Just how bad are banks suffering at the hands of attackers? Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Internet infrastructure provider Neustar, said the best some banks can do to prepare is to have a sincere-sounding apology at the ready, backed up with a plan B that points customers to an alternative method of communication such as a call center.

"There is in fact no way to defend against it properly," said Joffe, who has helped banks try to recover from the attacks.? "We can mitigate the attacks to some extent, but it is very difficult to keep systems up?This is one of our worst nightmares."

The criminals identify themselves in their warnings as the "al-Qassam Cyber Fighters," purportedly part of Hamas' al Qassam military wing. The basic attack is nothing new:? It?s a denial of service attack designed to make the banking websites unavailable. Bank sites are flooded with bogus Internet traffic so they are overwhelmed, and can only give the equivalent of a busy signal to customers.? But these attacks are very different, experts say, because of the sheer amount of bogus traffic that's generated.

With online banking services broken, consumers flood banks with phone calls, creating headaches for customers and banks alike.

"It's customer service nightmare for banks. They just aren't set up for this," Joffe said.??

But the biggest nightmare, he said, is that banks don't "defeat" the attacks with countermeasures. The criminals simply stop and turn their attention on another target, leaving bank security officials wondering when they might be victimized again. Capital One, for example, has suffered at least two separate service disruptions.

As provider of backup content delivery for many of the world's largest websites, Akamai Technology handles denial of service attacks every day, and it has dealt with the current wave of attacks.?? Mike Smith, director of Akamai?s incident response team, says the attacks succeed through a simple matter of arithmetic.

Banks buy, at most, an Internet pipe that can handle 20 gigabits-per-second of Web traffic, he said. The attackers are generating about 50 gigabits-per-second, making any tool that could filter out bad requests inadequate.

"It's fairly brute force, rather than laser scalpel," he said.?

Banks could consider tripling the bandwidth they buy, he explained, but that would be a huge waste of money during non-attack time s... and the criminals might just increase their bogus traffic anyway.? "It's all an arms race," he said.

How are criminals able to marshal such enormous traffic resources?? They are employing a new kind of electronic army, experts said. Until now, most denial of service attacks involved large "botnets" -- armies of compromised desktop computers -- that could number 100,000 or more.? These were clumsy, hard to coordinate and often limited by bandwidth purchased by home users. In this attack, criminals are taking control over web servers that have access to much wider Internet traffic pipes -- computers that host popular website blogs, for example.? As a result, criminals can attack with refined armies of only 1,000 to 2,000 compromised servers, while still wielding a devastating cyberweapon against bank websites.?

Adding to the complexity for victims, such compromised servers are also harder to knock offline than home PCs in botnets, Joffe said, because they are often intertwined with legitimate businesses that are reluctant to voluntarily go offline to clean them up.

"It's not a new kind from a technical prospective, it's just able to generate overwhelming volumes of traffic that are indeed quite noteworthy," said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, a startup focused on cyberespionage defense.

With a smaller, more powerful botnet, "attacker economics" favor the criminals, Smith said. It's easier for them to replace servers that are cleaned up, and it's much easier for them to stop and start attacks.

"They have much more command and control over the nodes," Smith said.

It's unusual for attackers to announce their targets ahead of time, but Smith said their reason for doing so is fairly obvious.

"What they are trying to do is amplify the bad public relations efforts element for banks," he said.?

Banks turn out to be a juicy target for denial of service attacks because their systems are easily turned against each other, Smith said.? Thanks to numerous fraud-checking tools, every request made at a bank site generates multiple responses from bank servers ?? ?log files, IP-checking tools, device-ID verification tools, etc. -- ?amplifying the effect of every bogus request.? In fact, while banks have beefed up fraud checks, they have done little to protect against denial of service attacks through the years, Smith said.

"Criminals have never wanted the sites to go down, because they need to sites to be up to commit fraud against the bank," he said.?

But even filters that find and deflect bogus website traffic wouldn't help much against these determined and sizable attacks, he said.?

"Most enforcement mechanisms don't have the capacity to deal with this much traffic," Smith said.

Given the remarkable scope of the attack, there has been much speculation by U.S. government officials -- openly and on background -- ?that the attacks could only be directed by a state-sponsored group, and represent an aggressive act of cyberwar perpetrated by agents of the Iranian government.? Both Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have openly blamed the attacks on Iran, with Panetta calling the incident a "pre 9/11 moment." Several intelligence officials have told NBC News that they believe Iran is behind the attacks.

Smith, however, says it's important not dismiss the possibility that old-fashioned online fraudsters are using the protests over the "Innocence of Muslims" film? as a cover to simply steal money from banks. As evidence, he points to a warning issued by the FBI on Sept. 17, which indicated that some banks had already been hit by denial of service attacks to help perpetrate wire fraud -- with thefts as high as $400,000. The website attacks serve as a diversion, and when consumers flood customer service phone banks, criminals who've stolen bank logins have an easier time slipping fraud through bank systems, the alert said.? In also predicts precisely the kinds of attacks banks are suffering through now.

"In some of the incidents, before and after unauthorized transactions occurred, the bank or credit union suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against their public ?website(s) and/or Internet Banking URL," the warning said. (PDF)? "The DDoS attacks were likely used as a distraction for bank personnel to prevent them from immediately identifying a fraudulent transaction, which in most cases is necessary to stop the wire transfer."

Smith said that same denial of service distraction technique was successfully employed by another group last year, making fraud -- and not geopolitics -- a likely motivator for the attacks.

"Maybe the intelligence world knows some things we don't know, but we haven't seen them prove it other than some public officials making statements," he said.? "But when you look at Al Qassam, until last month they were suicide bombers and restaurant shooter ... associated with physicals attacks, and overnight they acquired the capability to take banks offline? That I don't believe."

Robert Windrem, a senior investigative producer for NBC News, said there is "some level of disagreement" between ?law enforcement and intelligence officials about the real source of the attacks.

"The disparity in certainty (that Iran is behind the attacks) is due to the way law enforcement and intelligence look at the same incident," he said. "Law enforcement deals with forensics, and the intelligence agencies deal with intelligence. Intelligence is looking at it from the source, whereas law enforcement is looking at it from the effect side."

Experts agree on this point: With cybercrime, pinpointing a source can be nearly impossible. Smart criminals cover their tracks with numerous layers of compromised computers, across several state and international boundaries. The painstaking work of obtaining legal documents necessary to perform forensics on compromised computers, track bogus traffic, then examine the source of that traffic can take months. Meanwhile, attackers come and go within minutes.?

But the good news for banks is this: Website disruption, while a serious nuisance for bill payers, is hardly the end of the world. Backup systems, such as phone service in-person teller service, remain in place. Consumers are inconvenienced, but that's the extent of the disruptions so far.

"Ultimately, there is a very low impact on a bank," Smith said.? "It's more perception than anything. ? Websites are a cheaper way to do customer care, but they do have a manual fallback that's unaffected."

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Source: http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/22/14624198-why-your-banks-website-might-go-down-soon-and-why-hackers-seem-unstoppable?lite

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BeyondPod updated with Jelly Bean fixes and UI improvements

One of the front runners in podcast apps, BeyondPod, received a notable update in the Play Store today. The bulk of the changelog is focused on improvements in UI and usability, which is always welcome. The general player and playlist UI has received a bit of polish, with better use of gradients and shadowing to properly highlight unplayed shows. Additionally, the player notification -- provided you're on Android 4.0 and above -- has received a facelift, offering better playback controls. Under the hood improvements in streaming, downloading and bug fixes are also included.

While BeyondPod is powerful, it sometimes runs into a predicament, walking the line between offering a lot of functionality and being overwhelming with too many options. This update works to help with that problem, making some of the UI elements more intuitive.

More: Full changelog

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/mQzPCD9DDZw/story01.htm

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Anthem-singing youth set new world record ? The Express Tribune

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Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/454647/anthem-singing-youth-set-new-world-record/

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The Rural Stops: Have You Thought About What Self Improvement ...

You have tried everything you can think of to make your business work. Many times it is a great idea to walk away from it for a little while. We will ask you to look at your actions and analyze your thoughts. You really do need to become aware of what you think; the thoughts you have every day. It is quite normal for most people to be habitually and chronically negative in their daily lives. If that is the case, then that is your clue that those very thoughts reflect beliefs which are limiting your success. You can greatly benefit from a solid and reliable self improvement strategy.

Have you always had a problem trying out something new? Recognize this and realize that this might mean you do not like to venture away from the things you have always felt comfortable doing. Like most people, this means that you, too, can become stressed when you have to face a situation that you are uncomfortable with. But do not feel all alone on this one because there are many people who have this same issue. Expect to have to tackle varied areas that will cause you discomfort, but learn to overcome your resistance. You should know what causes you anxiety and what does not. A good solution would be to just address one small issue at a time, not the whole problem Don't pick the most intimidating thing to tackle at the beginning. Begin with something that is just a little bit challenging. Continue to plug away at your first challenge until it's conquered. You will feel better able to tackle the next step after the first one is successful. Another sticky area for many people concerns the ability to place our faith in others, and that could even be for outsourced work, too. Anyone involved in IM who outsources does so for a reason, and that is business growth plus expansion. What about non-work related areas, are those same anxieties present there? If you do, then that is a clear sign that this needs to be worked on. Talk to someone about this, and it may be best to seek professional advice. You can outsource a small task like a limited amount of backlinking, for example. This approach can help you to find people you can trust so you can move forward.

If you stop and think about it, you will realize that negativity is all around you. Have you wondered why we are inundated with so much bad and sensational news in our newspapers and on the television? It's simple, bad news sells ad space in both media and brings in viewers. Moreover, some of the most negative remarks and attitudes can come from the people we see frequently. These kinds of comments, whatever they are, most often will be expressing a limit, or restriction, to something. As an example, you are surely familiar with the person who always says something can't be done without even trying. These negative people are all around us. It should be obvious that the best course is to disallow any negative input into your life, whether it's from the news, the television, or other people.

It should be obvious that the best course is to disallow any negative input into your life, whether it's from the news, the television, or other people. Many of these positive and negative influences have the power to control the course of your business. You are the one who is responsible for fostering a positive attitude towards your life as much as you can.

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For more information on the last lecture audiobook, make sure you check out this article http://motivationalaudiobooks.org/category/the-last-lecture/.

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Source: http://ruralstops.blogspot.com/2012/10/have-you-thought-about-what-self.html

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Thousands attend Roanoke's Go Outside Festival | WSLS 10

Roanoke, VA --

The Roanoke Go Outside Festival is an annual event to celebrate the outdoors and a healthy lifestyle.

Man?s best friend even joined in on the fun over the weekend.

Hundreds flocked to Roanoke?s Rivers Edge Sports Complex for the 2nd annual event formerly known as the Outdoor Circus.

A wealth of outdoor related activities were available at the free event like slacklining, rock climbing, and Frisbee golf.????

?The whole idea behind this was Roanoke parks and recreation and Roanoke outside said what can we be doing to get more of our community healthy and active and outdoors and engage with the outdoors? said Pete Eshelman, the event organizer.

Event organizers expected more than seven thousand people to attend the weekend-long event.

Source: http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/oct/21/thousands-attend-roanokes-go-outside-festival-ar-2300803/

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Romney and Obama leave campaign trail to prepare for last debate, give running mates the stage (Star Tribune)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/256980343?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Spain's Rajoy gets mixed message in regional votes

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy secured backing for his austerity drive in a vote in his home region of Galicia on Sunday, but a clear win for nationalist parties in the Basque Country could soon prove a headache for the central government.

According to exit polls, Spain's ruling centre-right People's Party was set to retain its absolute majority and government in Galicia with 39 to 42 seats in the regional parliament compared with 18 to 20 seats for the Socialist Party and 15 to 18 seats for two nationalist parties.

Opinion polls before the vote had indicated the PP would win 39 or fewer seats.

In the Basque Country, the nationalist PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco) was set to win with 24 to 27 seats, compared with 23 to 26 seats for Bildu, a pro-independence party, 13 to 15 seats for the Socialist Party and 9 to 11 seats for the PP.

The vote in Galicia, where austerity steps were taken by the People's Party even before Rajoy took national office one year ago, had been seen as a referendum on the Spanish government's handling of the euro zone crisis. The PP has ruled in the region for 24 of the past 31 years.

European officials and analysts said Rajoy wanted to wait until after the election before requesting more European aid because he feared lenders' conditions, such as a reform of the pension system, could anger voters.

The Spanish prime minister, who received a euro zone pledge in June of up to 100 billion euros to recapitalize banks, said on Friday he still had not decided whether to request a sovereign bailout. Senior euro zone officials told Reuters they expected an aid request to be made next month.

The Galician result will give the prime minister some political breathing space after polls showing him losing support amid massive demonstrations against spending cuts in public services and successive tax hikes.

The Socialists had hoped for a repeat of regional elections in Andalusia earlier this year where it lost to the PP but managed to form a coalition government with another left-wing party.

But Sunday's results may re-open a leadership war in the Socialist Party, which ruled in Spain from 2004 to 2011.

FRESH CHALLENGE

In the Basque Country, the outcome of the vote, as expected, was influenced by central government attempts to reduce provincial power.

Spain has fallen into its second recession since 2009 and the International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will contract by 1.3 percent next year. Unemployment is 24.6 percent.

But in the Basque Country and in Catalonia, where nationalist parties are also set to win regional elections on November 25, issues such as fiscal and territorial autonomy dominate the agenda.

It is not yet clear who the Basque nationalist PNV will have to rely on to form a government. Political analysts said it may prefer to team up with the Socialist Party rather than with Bildu, which many see as linked to Basque separatist group ETA.

Opposition parties have accused the government of using the crisis to claw back powers from Spain's 17 autonomous regions, whose overspending was partly to blame for the failure of the country to meet its deficit targets last year.

The central government has offered funding to the regions in exchange for more control over local finances. So far, seven regions, including Catalonia, have said they would tap the liquidity line. The Basque Country is not expected to do so.

(Editing by Ralph Gowling and Jason Webb)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spains-pm-rajoy-wins-key-regional-vote-exit-183540111.html

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British protesters demand end to "failing" austerity

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched through central London on Saturday against public spending cuts and tax rises enacted by a government fighting accusations it is run by an upper-class elite that ignores the plight of recession-hit voters.

Blowing horns and whistles, protesters filed past the Houses of Parliament behind a banner declaring "Austerity is Failing", calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to do more to revive Britain's struggling economy.

The march comes at a time when Cameron's Conservative-led coalition is reeling from the resignation on Friday of a senior minister accused of calling police "plebs", a class-laden insult for working people.

"If the working class strike for a day, we'll see who runs this country," said Nick Chaffey, 48, a Socialist Party campaigner married to a teacher who has taken a pay cut.

"I've got friends who are in desperate straits, living in fear of losing their job and their house."

Cameron's party has faced a barrage of negative headlines over the departure of Andrew Mitchell - the "Chief Whip" or party enforcer - four weeks after he swore at police guarding the gates to Cameron's Downing Street office.

A separate row involving finance minister George Osborne, who sat in a first class train carriage with a standard class ticket before paying for an upgrade, added ammunition to critics who say the Conservatives are privileged and out-of-touch.

"Who Do They Think They Are?" asked the Daily Mail newspaper in a front page headline, while the Financial Times said the bad news over Mitchell and Osborne capped a "dismal week for the Tories", the centre-right party that is trailing in the polls.

Under grey autumnal skies, demonstrators waved banners saying "No Cuts", "Tax the Rich, Teach the Poor" and "Plebs of the World Unite", poking fun at Mitchell's resignation.

Others handed out leaflets decorated with Wild West-style "Wanted" posters bearing Cameron's picture and the message: "Running a government by and for millionaires".

Nurses, cleaners, librarians and ambulance drivers were among tens of thousands who joined the march and a rally in London's central Hyde Park, in one of the biggest anti-austerity protests this year. Marches will also take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Glasgow, Scotland.

Trade union leaders are trying to use the rally to pile more pressure on Cameron, telling protesters the government's economic plan has failed and only prolonged Britain's recession.

"Austerity isn't working. It is hammering the poorest and the most vulnerable," Brendan Barber, head of the Trades Union Congress, an umbrella group which represents 54 unions, will say in a speech at the rally.

"Ministers told us that if we only accept the pain, recovery would come. Instead we have been mired in a double-dip recession."

COALITION UNDER PRESSURE

The coalition government has responded to calls from unions and the opposition Labour Party to do more to increase growth by relaxing planning laws and boosting lending to businesses.

But its latest attempt to ease the pressure on squeezed households backfired this week when Cameron said the government would legislate to force energy companies to give customers their lowest tariff.

The announcement appeared to take his own ministers by surprise and sowed confusion over what he meant and whether it would actually happen.

Cameron's party staked its 2010 election campaign on the austerity programme, calling for deeper cuts to welfare spending in the years to come while dismissing the idea of a tax on the wealthy.

In an emergency budget announced after winning power, his coalition government said it would cut most departmental budgets by an average of around 20 percent over four years.

It announced a public sector pay freeze, set a new ceiling on the total state benefits any family can receive and cut tax relief on pensions.

It has also raised the VAT sales tax to 20 percent from 17.5 percent, increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco and raised payroll taxes for employees.

Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband said the government's policies had damaged the economic recovery.

"They told us austerity would help our economy grow. But our economy has not grown. It has flatlined," he will tell the demonstration in a speech.

But opponents of the unions say the government should stick to its plan to eliminate a budget deficit that stood at 8 percent of gross domestic product last year, the biggest of any major European country.

Sajid Javid, a Conservative Treasury minister, said the government was right to focus on cutting borrowing and data last week indicating a fall in unemployment and inflation showed its economic policies were on track.

"There is a still a lot to do," he told Sky News. "I don't pretend for a second that we are out of the woods, but this government is facing up to the problem, it is not sticking its head in the sand like Ed Miliband."

(Writing by Peter Griffiths; Additional reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Maria Golovnina and Sophie Hares)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/austerity-protesters-fed-economy-march-london-100346774.html

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Discover the Best Adidas or K-Swiss trainers Online

Most people assume that because they have the perfect pair of Adidas trainers, K-Swiss trainers, Nike trainers or even the Timberland boots that they will always find it easy to buy these online. Well, the fact is that online stores are constantly changing as well the manufacturers of these Nike trainers or K-Swiss trainers.
Hence, it is always best to heed the advice of experts in terms of buying the K-Swiss trainers or Adidas trainers that best fit the feet. In fact, professional shoe runners compare the shoe buying to purchasing Men's Polo Shirts. There are always different trends and styles that are increasing in demand and it would be best to figure out the best tips on how to get the best pair of Nike trainers or K-Swiss trainers.
The Basic Shopping Tips to Keep in Mind
The online shopping is already considered to be quite a convenient and easy thing to do. However, the fact is that the Nike trainers, Adidas trainers or the Timberland boots that are offered online are quite harder to pick because you physically cannot fit or see these pairs of shoes. It is already proven that you want to get the Timberland boots or the Adidas trainers that will be comfortable and easy on the feet. Nevertheless, the fact is that online shopping is essentially a different arena. In fact, even shopping online for the Men's Polo Shirts is entirely different experience.
The most essential thing to consider when buying the Adidas trainers or the K-Swiss trainers online is the retailers offering these items for sale. More and more people are opting to buy the Adidas trainers, K-Swiss trainers, Timberland boots, and even the Men's Polo Shirts online. Primarily, the main benefit or reason they consider this choice is they get the convenience of buying anytime they want. With accessibility to such renowned brands such as the Nike trainers, Adidas trainers, and the Timberland boots, it would be wise to be quite selective in terms of the seller.
Another thing that often needs consideration in buying the Nike trainers, Adidas trainers or the Timberland boots is the shipping charges. As these K-Swiss trainers and more are delivered straight to the doorstep of your homes, it is expected there will be fees to pay. There are actually some stores that try to give this delivery charge for free provided a certain minimum limit of purchase for the Nike trainers, Adidas trainers and even the Men's Polo Shirts are met or exceeded. The truth is that it is always important for you to consider the shipping charges of the store prior to getting these products to your shopping cart.
Return and exchange policies must be considered and read prior to the actual shopping of the different products. It is quite a feat if you are able to get the Nike trainers or the K-Swiss trainers from a store that really offers quite a great policy. Typically, this is actually considered as an important aspect as the Nike trainers and the Adidas trainers have not been tried and tested, and there might be issues that you may want to replace or addressed. While some stores will have great policies for the Adidas trainers and the K-Swiss trainers, there may be some things that need to be assessed such as the physical conditions of the shoes and such.
Online shopping is considered to be one of the best things that have been produced by the Internet. However, the risks for such are also inherent. One of the best trusted stores for the Timberland boots, Nike trainers, Adidas trainers, and even some Men's Polo Shirts can be found at www.sportsmart.co.uk.

Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1408851/discover-the-best-adidas-or-k-swiss-trainers-online.htm

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Anxious Turks suspect US plot is behind Syria's implosion

In an empty coffee house in Antakya, local tradesman Ahmet Sari's face crumples in anger as he speaks about Syria.

?What's happening in Syria is all part of America's great project to reshape the borders of the Middle East. America and its allies don't care about bringing democracy to the Syrian people. Look at what happened to Iraq!? he fumes. ?The imperialist countries are only after oil and mineral resources.?

Nineteen months into Syria's conflict, resentment of Ankara and anti-US sentiment simmer in Antakya, which lies just over the border with Syria. The province is grappling with an ailing trade and tourism sector and an influx of refugees and rebel fighters. Locals blame the Turkish government for dragging them into the conflict by backing the Syrian opposition and aligning Turkey with the opposition's Western allies.

RELATED ? Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.

The current administration's "zero problems with neighbors" foreign policy, which stood strong for several years, now rings hollow as Turkey's diplomatic ties with Syria and its ally Iran sour due to Ankara's support for the rebels. And many say that all of these problems can be traced back to the US, who they are convinced got involved with, and perhaps even fomented, the Syrian unrest to loosen up regional powers' grip on oil, enlisting Turkey as a pawn in the process. It had little to do with support for democracy, they believe.

STIRRING UP THE 'BEEHIVE'

The beliefs stem in part from a bold Bush administration political proposal that has faded into obscurity in the West, but remains lodged in the minds of many here. Known as the Greater Middle East Initiative, it was formally introduced by then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006 at a conference in Tel Aviv. Her references to "the birth pangs of a New Middle East" and the unveiling there of a new map of the region featuring a "Free Kurdistan" are still remembered with resentment.

Even with a new administration in the White House that has sought to distance itself from the previous administration's Middle East policies, many in the region are suspicious of US motives and don't believe that the various uprisings began as indigenous, people-driven movements, independent of any US involvement.

Refik Eryilmaz, a Turkish parliamentarian from Antakya with the opposition Republican People's Party, says that Western superpowers are trying to incite a sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites so that countries in the region fragment along ethno-religious lines, becoming weaker in the process.

Syria is predominantly Sunni, but President Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite, a Shiite offshoot, as is most of his government.

"The access to oil will be made easier when people in these regions are divided and fighting amongst themselves. Both the US and Israel want to weaken Iran and strengthen their own position in the Middle East. But to do this, first they must weaken Syria and replace the current government with someone who supports them instead of Iran," says Mr. Eryilmaz.

This suspicion ? that outside intervention is stirring up sectarian strife in Syria ? is a view shared by many in Antakya, Turkey's most ethno-religiously diverse province.

Although Nihat Yenmis, president of the Alevi Cultural Foundation (AKAD) in Iskenderun, is convinced that sectarian violence will not seep into Turkey, he laments the plight of Syrian civilians, caught up in the cross-fire of a conflict that he interprets as planned and stoked by outside intervention.

?All ethno-religious groups have lived side by side in this region for centuries. But if someone hits a beehive from the outside, they will destroy the peace within the hive. All the bees inside the hive will fight with one another. That's exactly what the US is doing in the Middle East,? says Mr. Yenmis.

Gilbert Achcar, a professor of international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, says that the Greater Middle East Initiative has long since been abandoned, and all that remains is the deep skepticism of US motives that it spurred. Those in the Middle East tend to attribute more power to the US than it actually has, he says.

?The US is overwhelmed by the situation in the Middle East and is not in control, let alone plotting something. The GMEI never took root. It just provided a grand name that fueled people's imaginations, and conspiracy theories were invented," he says.

A PENCHANT FOR CONSPIRACIES

The region's penchant for Western conspiracy theories is long-standing, beginning with the then-secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided up the region between the British and the French, Mr. Achcar says.

That history influenced the perception of the Bush administration's Greater Middle East Partnership Initiative, later renamed the New Middle East Project, that was drawn up in 2004 in response to potential "threats of terrorism" in the wake of 9/11. The mission was to bolster democracy and socio-economic development in the Middle East and North Africa and build a bulwark against the expansion of radical terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda.

But the initiative stalled in the face of heightened anti-American sentiment in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Prominent Arab figures were quick to criticize it as another US attempt to "reform" a region it did not fully understand. In an article published in pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat in 2004, the chief editor of the Arab Human Development Report, Nader Fergany, criticized the "arrogant" worldview of the the Bush administration which "causes it to behave as if it can decide the fate of states and peoples.?

Tasked with alleviating Arab mistrust, the US selected Turkey as a key bridge between the US and the Middle East. The ruling Justice and Development Party's promotion of "conservative democracy" appealed to the West because of its reformist stance, and to Islamic countries in the Middle East due to its emphasis on a traditional Muslim identity.

But today, Turkey's role as a bridge between the West and the Arab world on the Syrian conflict has again raised suspicions. Its alliances with the US and autocratic countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who have also come out as strong backers of the Syrian opposition, have provoked accusations that Turkey is more intent on weakening secular Syria and reinstating a Sunni government than in democracy.

While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed last year on a live broadcast that the US initiative never took root, some in the Middle East still refer back to Mr. Erdogan's older statements of being GMEI's co-chairman, and remain convinced that a US-inspired scheme ? with Turkey taking the lead ? is underway.

?Perhaps the US is doing what's right for its own country and implementing a foreign policy that will protect its dominance in the world, but we have to inquisition the countries that are acting as a US pawn. Many people in Turkey think that Turkey is merely serving US interests in the region to its own detriment,? says Eryilmaz.

Back in Antakya's coffee house, with no end in sight to the Syrian conflict, local trader Ahmet Sari shows how deeply this sentiment reaches.

?So many people have died unnecessarily in Syria ? children are dying," he says, wearily. "We just want this war to stop and for there to be peace. We don't hate the American people. We just want the US administration to stop trying to spread its expansionist policies.?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/anxious-turks-suspect-us-plot-behind-syrias-implosion-145035168.html

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