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n1 writes:

After repeated claims that Britain's reloading of the Saudi Arabian Royal Air Force's bomb bays does not mean Britain is at war with Yemen – where its ordnance are dropped – the government finally conceded that it is.

In a tense exchange with parliamentarians in a debate on the British sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, Alan Duncan, the government's Special Envoy to Yemen, said: "We are in conflict for a reason".

Duncan's admission officially confirms of what every sensible person has known since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war with an air campaign made possible by British planes and British bombs, and for which UK arms companies made £2.8bn in revenues in the first year alone.

To use the words of the UN envoy to Yemen, the "humanitarian catastrophe" precipitated by the Arab world's richest country bombing its poorest has been almost total.

[...] while NGOs and MPs in several parliamentary committees have been sharp in their criticism of the government for continuing to fuel this war, the government does nothing, meekly claiming over and over again there is no evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen and that Britain regularly "seeks assurances" from Saudi Arabia that it is not committing those crimes.

In March, the UK director of Human Rights Watch told the arms export control committee that he has personally handed evidence to the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, complete with GPS coordinates, of Saudi air strikes on civilian targets. This month Amnesty International sent photographs of British-made BL-755 cluster bombs partially exploded in recent months discovered in farmland near the village of al-Khadhra in northern Yemen.

[...] The government is wriggling because, under Britain's own arms export laws, it is illegal for it to sell arms to a state that is at a "clear risk" of committing international humanitarian crimes. Acknowledging the chorus of evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen would be tantamount to admitting Britain's complicity in them.

The truth is that the arms trade of a handful of private arms companies with Saudi Arabia is simply off limits to our country's democratic apparatus as well as its civil society.

Source: The Independent

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Amazon is launching a full online supermarket service in the UK.

From Thursday, Amazon Prime customers in central and east London will be able to order a full weekly shop and get it delivered the same day.

It plans to roll the deliveries out further across the UK, but has not set a specific date.

"We are launching with a comprehensive offer in a limited area and will take our time to hone our service," said Ajay Kavan from AmazonFresh.

That service has been running in the US since 2007.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The US administration on Thursday endorsed a plan to cede its oversight of the gatekeeper of Internet addresses to the broader online community.

Commerce Department assistant secretary for communications and information Lawrence Strickling told AFP that the proposal from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meets the criteria set by the US administration.

The plan aims to maintain Internet governance under a "multi-stakeholder" model which avoids control of the online ecosystem by any single governmental body.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/US-agency-endorses-plan-to-cede-Internet-oversight-30287740.html

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

Russia's Irkut Corp. has shown, in its Irkutsk factory, the first completed MC-21 jetliner. It may be built in versions that carry about 130 to 211 passengers.

The company hopes to commence flight testing by the end of the year. As shown, the aircraft had a pair of Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1400G-JM geared turbofan engines, but when manufacturing begins in earnest, it may be equipped with the Russian-built Aviadvigatel PD-14, which is still in testing.

The aircraft is scheduled to mark its first flight in 2017 and is planned be handed over to its first customers in 2019-20.

The МС-21 family includes two aircraft with a high degree of design commonality. МС-21-200 designed for 132 to 165 passengers and МС-21-300 designed for 163 to 211 passengers.

Coverage:

• Business Insider
• TASS (owned by Russian government)
• Air Transport World
• Aviation International News
• Sputnik News (sponsored by Russian government; has video)
• Defenseworld.net (Tor-friendly copy)
• ChannelNewsAsia
• Pravda.ru

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Genetic analysis has been used to subdivide Acute Myeloid Leukaemia into 11 distinct groups:

One of the main types of blood cancer is not one but 11 distinct diseases, detailed genetic analysis suggests. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found genetic differences explain why some patients respond much better to treatment than others. The researchers say their findings should help with the development of clinical trials. Cancer Research UK says this type of study offers new insights into cancer. The study focused on Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) - there are around 3,000 new cases every year in the UK.

[...] Clinicians currently rely on checks for chromosomal abnormalities and analysis under a microscope. In this study - involving more than 1,500 patients - researchers carried out a far more detailed genetic analysis of the cancer. They looked at more than 100 genes known to cause leukaemia, and investigated how they interacted. They found the patients divided into at least 11 major groups, each with their own set of genetic changes and clinical features.

Genomic Classification and Prognosis in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (open, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1516192)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Former UK foreign secretary Lord William Hague has predicted that unbreakable encryption will need to be banned, or the public will face more "severe and draconian" restrictions on civil liberties:

Lord Hague has predicted that Western societies will enact laws and regulations against unbreakable encryption – while conceding that the technology has always existed.

The former UK foreign secretary, who is also a historian and author of a biography of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, told delegates at the Infosec trade show that a book-based cypher written by an 18th century politician remains unbroken. "Unless we know the book it's based on," or can find example of the same code being used in other messages, then it will remain unbroken, he said.

Technology firms need to cooperate or else law enforcement will lose the ability to investigate serious crimes, including tax evasion, people trafficking and terrorism, according to Lord Hague. This is because criminals and terrorists use communication technologies also used by mainstream consumers such as iMessage and WhatsApp – those are Lord Hague's examples. Unless government and their security agencies retain the ability to spot malicious activities through electronic intelligence, restrictions on civil liberties would have to be more "severe and draconian", he argued.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The Obama administration is pushing to amend existing privacy law in a way that critics argue would allow the government access to internet browsing histories and other metadata -- without needing a warrant.

An amendment to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), set to be considered by the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, will allow the FBI to subpoena records associated with Americans' online communications -- so called electronic communications transactional records -- with the use of national security letters, which don't require court approval.

That would allow federal agents to access phone logs, email records, cell-site data used to pinpoint locations, as well as accessing a list of visited websites.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who introduced the amendment, said the change was necessary to prevent "needlessly hamstringing our counterintelligence and counter-terrorism efforts."

Under existing law, national security letters can get access to all kinds of metadata -- but not contents of calls, emails, and other messages. But they don't permit the collection of website addresses, or internet search queries. (That said, the FBI is said to have secret legal interpretations allowing it to collect web histories in some cases.)

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-now-wants-access-to-internet-browsing-history-without-a-warrant/

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The authorities in this district of Madhya Pradesh have made it compulsory for a person seeking a firearm licence to first cite proof that they have a toilet at home.

In rural India many people consider toilets to be unsanitary and believe that defecating in open fields is healthier. That leads both to increased health risks for people walking in those fields and increased personal risk of attack, especially at night. The new prime minister, hindu nationalist Nahendra Modi, made widespread adoption of toilets a major campaign promise, dubbing it "toilets before temples."

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

from the elementy-mcelementface dept.

Nature reports (doi:10.1038/nature.2016.20069) that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has taken proposals from the discoverers of four new chemical elements:

• Nihonium and symbol Nh, for the element with Z =113,
• Moscovium with the symbol Mc, for the element with Z = 115,
• Tennessine with the symbol Ts, for the element with Z = 117, and
• Oganesson with the symbol Og, for the element with Z = 118.

The proposed names honour Japan, Moscow, Tennessee and the Russian nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian. Before the names become official, there is to be a five-month period during which the public may comment upon them. The symbol Ts was chosen because Tn is already in use for ²²⁰Rn, known as thoron (probably because it results from the decay of thorium).

Further Information:
provisional recommendations

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36484245

A Swedish court has ruled that the confectionery firm Mars can no longer advertise its M&M's brand with the lower case lettering - m&m. The court ruled that the logo is too similar to the single lower case "m" used by the Swedish chocolate covered peanut brand Marabou.

If Mars doesn't appeal it will have to use the capital M&M logo in Sweden starting in July. Mars said it believed "no confusion exists" between the two chocolates.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, the IRS has finally released a near-complete list of the organizations it snagged in a political dragnet.

The tax agency filed the list last month as part of a court case after a series of federal judges, fed up with what they said was the agency's stonewalling, ordered it to get a move on. The case is a class-action lawsuit, so the list of names is critical to knowing the scope of those who would have a claim against the IRS.

But even as it answers some questions, the list raises others, including exactly when the targeting stopped, and how broadly the tax agency drew its net when it went after non-profits for unusual scrutiny.

The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit.

That total is much higher than the 298 groups the IRS' inspector general identified back in May 2013, when investigators first revealed the agency had been subjecting applications to long — potentially illegal — delays, and forcing them to answer intrusive questions about their activities.

Source: Washington Times

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.

That's where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime.

Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.

It's called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and state police began using 16 of them last month.

Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.

"We're gonna look for different factors in the way that you're acting," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. "We're gonna look for if there's a difference in your story. If there's some way that we can prove that you're falsifying information to us about your business."

...

News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state.

It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes.

http://www.news9.com/story/32168555/ohp-uses-new-device-to-seize-money-used-during-the-commission-of-a-crime

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Maria Sharapova has been banned from competition for two years following a drug test that came back positive for meldonium:

Maria Sharapova has been banned for two years by the International Tennis Federation for using a prohibited drug. The Russian was provisionally banned in March after testing positive for meldonium at January's Australian Open. The heart disease drug, which 29-year-old Sharapova says she has been taking since 2006 for health issues, became a banned substance on 1 January 2016.

The five-time Grand Slam winner said she "cannot accept" the "unfairly harsh" ban - and will appeal. Sharapova will challenge the suspension, which is backdated to 26 January 2016, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

In a statement, she said the tribunal concluded her offence was "unintentional" and that she had not tried to use a "performance-enhancing substance". But she claimed the ITF had asked the tribunal to impose a four-year ban, adding it "spent tremendous amounts of time and resources trying to prove I intentionally violated the anti-doping rules".

What is meldonium?

Previously: Maria Sharapova Admits Failed Drug Test at Australian Open

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

After taking action against people using VPNs and proxies, Netflix is engaged in enhanced efforts to stop users accessing geo-blocked content. According to several reports, Netflix is now blocking users who use IPv4 to IPv6 tunnel brokers, even when doing so legitimately.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-blocks-ipv6-over-geo-unblocking-fears-160608/

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

On June 7, 2016, weather radar near Columbus, Indiana showed what looked like a pop-up thunderstorm, but is now being reported as a release of military chaff. The cloud was visible on radar for more than six hours, drifting ESE before finally dissipating south of Cincinnati.

The National Weather Service confirms with the military that countermeasures / chaff was released south of Indianapolis this evening, which caused the mysterious "blob" to show up. Weather service officials also said we should expect more "blobs" to show up on radar soon. The chaff release showed up on radar for nearly five hours.

takyon: "Chaff [...] is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallized glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of primary targets on radar screens or swamps the screen with multiple returns."

Original Submission