Sunday 4 January 2015

USAHitman | Conspiracy News

Intel agencies warn terrorists may hijack Air India flight

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 05:22 PM PST

After receiving an anonymous tipoff, Indian intelligence agencies have warned the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) that terrorists may imminently target an Air India flight, and airports throughout the country were put on high alert.
The alert has been sounded at major Indian airports, such as Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, according to the Times of India newspaper.
The warning that caused a tightening of security came a day after an anonymous telephone call to an Air India city booking office in Kolkata, local police said.
“Air India aircraft will be hijacked,” a male voice said in Bengali. Kolkata Police’s Special Task Force and detective department have joined forces to track down the caller.

“We have filed a complaint at Bowbazar police station. Since the threat was a general one, regarding [Air India] flights, we have heightened security on all aircraft operating across the country,” an Air India spokesperson said, confirming the call.
Afghanistan’s intelligence services are also on alert, having received information on a possible hijack of a plane flying from New Delhi to Kabul, Pajhwok news agency reported.
The anonymous call came as US President Barack Obama is set to visit India on Republic Day, January 26.
“More security personnel have been deployed in and around the airport. There will be tighter screening of people and anyone who appears suspicious will be detained and questioned. In addition, there are quick reaction teams on standby,” a source at Kolkata airport said.
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Gigabyte gourmet: AI robot learns to cook just by watching YouTube

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 04:59 PM PST

A team of American and Australian researchers claim they have created algorithms that enable robots to learn operational skills by watching human activities. They “taught” their robot to cook by showing it some YouTube videos.
Researchers from the University of Maryland and the Australian research center NICTA have been “educating” their robot using the so-called “deep learning” method of artificial intelligence training.
This method implies that a robot receives large chunks of information through a number artificial neural networks, be it audio and video images recognition or other information inputs, then sums the new data up and acts in accordance with the freshly obtained experience.
The robot employs recognition techniques that make it capable of recognizing specific objects, the way they are grasped by the human hand, and even predicting the next action most likely to be made with the object. This means that the robot could analyze and learn how to handle instruments and tools.
Modern robots could thus be “taught” to mechanically repeat a certain operation, e.g. painting a vehicle, yet a machine capable of analyzing the process to learn “how it works” has an invaluable importance for the future of robotics.
The scientists claim that the AI robot created by the researchers was trained to cook using 88 videos of people cooking found on the web. Once the robot analyzed the videos, it was able to generate the commands it would need to cook food.
“We believe this preliminary integrated system raises hope toward a fully intelligent robot for manipulation tasks that can automatically enrich its own knowledge resource by “watching” recordings from the World Wide Web,” the researchers said.
Their work is scheduled to be presented later this month at the 29th annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
Educatable robots as such and artificial intelligence in general do not always inspire. Indeed, some prominent scientists worry that the AI robots could eventually outsmart the human race and take over, Terminator-style.
Just one month ago, world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking told the BBC he believes future developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to eradicate mankind.
“Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded,” Hawking said.
The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has also warned of the danger of artificial intelligence, saying that it is the biggest existential threat facing humanity.
He said that in developing AI “we are summoning the demon.”
Musk also said that artificial intelligence was “potentially more dangerous than nukes.”
The fact that the US Army’s project Shared Perception, Cognition and Reasoning for Autonomy did provide a grant – among other sources – to the abovementioned self-learning robot research, does raise some thoughts about Terminator’s SkyNet.
Still, many believe that you can teach a robot to cook, without giving it the power to exterminate the human race.
Source
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Computer glitch prevents F-35 fighter jet from firing until 2019

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 04:13 PM PST

The Pentagon’s fighter jet F-35 may not be fully operational until 2019 due to a newly discovered computer glitch. The $400 billion ultra-sophisticated jet, the most expensive in US history, was expected to enter service in 2015.
F-35 is the fifth generation combat aircraft which is designed in three variations for US Air Force, Navy and Marines to replace out of date aircraft. It was planned to join the Marines in 2015 and Air Force in 2016.
It is planned to replace the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog ground attack plane and Lockheed F-16 multirole fighter, the Navy instead of Boeing F/A-18 Hornet carrier-based fighter, and the Marines instead of Boeing AV-8B Harrier II jump-jet.
However, the most awaited plane’s main weapon will not be able to fire due to a computer glitch. The four-barreled rotary cannon for the Air Force version of the F-35 cannot function until new software is elaborated, despite jet scheduled to join the army this year.
“There will be no gun until [the Joint Strike Fighter’s Block]3F [software], there is no software to support it now or for the next four-ish years,” an Air Force official affiliated with the F-35 program told the Daily Beast. “Block 3F is slated for release in 2019, but who knows how much that will slip?”
This problem is especially acute as this version of the jet is planned for close air support (CAS) operations. While the F-35 is equipped with other armaments, it might be not enough.
“Lack of forward firing ordnance in a CAS supporting aircraft is a major handicap,” an experienced pilot commented for the Daily Beast. “CAS fights are more fluid than air interdiction, friendlies and targets move… Often times quickly. The ability to mark the target with rockets and attack the same target 10 seconds later is crucial.”
Equipped with a gun, Air Force’s F-35A version barely carries enough ammunition. Despite being able to shoot 3,300 rounds per minute, it will only be carrying 180 to 220 rounds.
The two other versions of F-35 – for the Navy and Marine Corps – have different configurations with external gun pods, however, they will not have a software for them either, the Daily Beast reported.
F-35 production has been facing delays and cost overruns due to numerous software problems and production defects. The jet which has already cost $400 billion dollars to US taxpayers since the program started in 2006. The costs doubled since the start of construction in 2011 making it the most expensive project in military history.
However, the Pentagon denied the aircraft will be delayed, the International Business Times reports as well as neither Lockheed nor the F-35 Joint Program Office responded to inquiries.
Last December, a problem with fuel was discovered. The engine of the aircraft can shut down when the fuel gets too hot to work as a coolant, although this information was disputed by the Pentagon.
Last summer, the F-35 was supposed to be the star attraction at the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire, but it did not appear after the entire fleet was grounded after a fire at a Florida airbase in June.
The Pentagon plans to buy 2,433 jets in three variations. Great Britain has also ordered 14 jets. However, the program is getting more and more severe criticism.
“To me, the more disturbing aspect of this delay is that it represents yet another clear indication that the program is in serious trouble,” an Air Force official told the Daily Beast. “F-35 maker “Lockheed Martin is clearly in a situation where they are scrambling to keep their collective noses above the waterline, and they are looking to push non-critical systems to the right in a moment of desperation.”
The F35 is designed and built by American Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company which manufactures the widely spread military aircraft F-16, also known as the Fighting Falcon, successful all-weather multirole plane.
Source
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FBI linguistic experts complain of extra scrutiny for having links abroad

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 04:07 PM PST

Hundreds of FBI workers who were born overseas or have foreign ties are being subjected to extra internal surveillance, a report says. They complain it is unfair and discriminatory, and stalls their careers.
Everyone employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is subject to internal security screenings to ensure that the organization is not put at risk from possible spies within the network. However, those who have been hired by the bureau due to their foreign language and cultural skills, or have family members living overseas, say their career prospects are being hampered and they are not allowed to undertake certain assignments, The New York Times reports.
The FBI created the Post-Adjudication Risk Management program (PARM) to keep tabs on workers following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They wanted to monitor newly hired linguists who had access to sensitive material to make sure they would not be coerced by family members or friends into passing it on third parties.
The FBI has said that inclusion in PARM is not discriminatory to its employees and that the added safeguards are necessary to ensure state secrets are kept secret, especially in the wake the high classified information that was disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
“I want to assure you that being under a PARM plan is neither an adverse action against you nor an indicator that you are a threat to the national security interests of the United States,” J. Mark Batts, who, as acting section chief in the FBI security division, wrote one employee recently, the New York Times reported.
This program was good for the new hires after 9/11, but for it to be used against current employees, some with 10 or 15 years’ experience and who have proved themselves, is unacceptable,” FBI agent Gamal Abdel-Hafiz told the New York Times.
Abdel-Hafiz, an Egyptian-born agent who joined the FBI in 1994 as a linguist, was put in the PARM program without warning in 2012. He mentioned that he was no longer trusted with being given top secret documents, while others who had been included in the program said it was harder to get undercover assignments.
“If you’re in this program, it affects you from moving up,” said Bobby Devadoss, Abdel-Hafiz’s lawyer. “You could be a superstar agent, but if you’re in this box, you’re in the box.”
Another lawyer, Jonathan Moore, who represented an agent who was included in the program, said people often do not know why they have been included in it. “Inclusion seems to be wholly discretionary, which means it could be caused by the whims of a supervisor who for whatever reason doesn’t think so highly of the agent,” he said.
Since 2012, the FBI has increased its hiring of linguists by 85 percent, with Arabic, Chinese and Farsi the most in-demand languages. The organization employs in the region of 36,000 people, and around 1,000 are believed to be in PARM.
Source
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AirAsia plane engine cuts out minutes before takeoff in Indonesia

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 04:03 PM PST

In the latest in a string of incidents, an engine of an AirAsia aircraft with 120 passengers onboard cut out during taxiing before takeoff from Juanda International Airport in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, and passengers were forced to disembark.
The plane, scheduled to fly to Bandung, also on Java, at 9pm local time Saturday, was taxiing for a couple of minutes when suddenly one of its engines cut out with a loud noise, Indonesia’s Metro TV reported.
“The plane was ready and moved, but suddenly a loud sound was heard, the sound of the engine disappeared and the plane moved backward. We were shocked and panicked. The plane was then pulled back to where it parked and we were asked by the stewardess to leave the plane,” passenger Yusuf Fitriadi was quoted as saying.
Some time later, a man in a pilot’s uniform came out to the passengers waiting at the terminal and told them that the plane’s starter monitor had malfunctioned.
Fitriadi told Metro TV that when the airline announced later that the flight would be resumed once the malfunction was repaired, some 90 percent of the passengers refused to get back on the plane.
Those passengers who declined to take the flight were refunded in full by the airline, the report said. There were three more minor incidents with AirAsia flights last week, on December 28 and 30.
Last Sunday, an AirAsia flight FD3254 bound for northeast Thailand’s Khon Kaen had to return back to the capital Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport soon after departing at 11:10 am due to an “irregularity” detected by pilots in the storage compartment.
In a separate incident later Sunday, AirAsia flight AK6242, with over 150 passengers aboard, experienced a technical problem about 10 minutes after taking off from Penang, Malaysia, and had to return to the airport. The malfunction was soon corrected and the flight safely reached its short-haul destination of Langkawi Island.
An AirAsia Zest plane from Manila on December 30 rolled off the runway in bad weather conditions on arrival at the popular Philippines resort island of Boracay. All 153 passengers and crew of the Flight Z2272 were safely evacuated from the aircraft at Kalibo airport, but the small airport was shut down for some time.
AirAsia’s flight QZ8501, which crashed last Sunday, also took off from the Surabaya airport.
Bound for Singapore, flight QZ8501 crashed in the Java Sea. All 162 passengers and crew of the A320-200 are believed to be dead, and large pieces of debris have already been found on the seabed off the coast of Borneo Island. The bodies of up to 30 passengers have been recovered from the water.
Source
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Senior Iranian council deems new tough hijab law unconstitutional

Posted: 03 Jan 2015 04:01 PM PST

Iran’s top legislative body has turned down a new draft law aimed at giving more powers to Iranian police and notorious volunteer militias to enforce women’s compulsory wearing of the hijab.
The draft, entitled the “Plan on Protection of Promoters of Virtue and Vice,” was rejected by the country’s Guardian Council, an influential 12-member committee that scrutinizes Tehran’s legislation.
Quoting a council spokesman, the official IRNA news agency reported that the 24-point plan featured up to 14 flaws, that it “contradicted the constitution and was not approved.” The council sent the draft law back to parliament for reworking, the news agency said.
Iranian lawmakers wanted to give members of the Basij (a paramilitary volunteer militia established in 1979 by order of the Islamic Revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini), power to verbally caution women they deem inappropriately dressed.
The draft law, which was approved by parliament in December, also aimed to place responsibility on employers to make sure that women employees wear the hijab, with firms facing fines for non-compliance.
Under Islamic law, which has been in force in Iran since the 1979 Revolution, in public women must wear a headscarf, known as a hijab, covering the head and neck and hiding the hair. After the fervor of the Revolution faded away, some Iranian women have sought to push back the hardcore religious boundaries, wearing thin headscarves, tight jeans and pants and trendy coats rather than modest chadors (head-to-toe traditional black garments that cover the body entirely). This backsliding has provoked claims from lawmakers and religious leaders that strict rules are being neglected and not protected by morality police, whose duty is to ensure that women are dressed according to the Islamic dress code.
The country’s moderate elected leader, President Hassan Rouhani, urged by hardline lawmakers to take a tougher stance on the veil, chose to distance himself from the draft law, however.
“We should not be overly focused on one issue, such as bad hijab, to prevent vice,” Rouhani said in October.
Rouhani has managed to stand by his election promise to lighten the country’s strict Islamic dress code. Last November, the country’s morality police were banned from arresting women deemed to be immodestly dressed, and the responsibility for hijab enforcement has been shifted from the police to the Interior Ministry.
Source
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White House announces sanctions against N. Korea

Posted: 02 Jan 2015 04:58 PM PST

US President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Friday authorizing the imposition of new sanctions against certain North Korean entities in the wake of the recent Sony hack the White House continues to blame on Pyongyang.
The US Department of the Treasury said Friday that Pres. Obama has authorized sanctions against three businesses and 10 individuals, “driven by our commitment to hold North Korea accountable for its destructive and destabilizing conduct,” namely the recent attack waged against Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer network and the subsequent threats that followed.
“Even as the FBI continues its investigation into the cyber-attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, these steps underscore that we will employ a broad set of tools to defend US businesses and citizens, and to respond to attempts to undermine our values or threaten the national security of the United States,” Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew said in a statement released on Friday afternoon, January 2, announcing the sanctions.
“The actions taken today under the authority of the president’s new Executive Order will further isolate key North Korean entities and disrupt the activities of close to a dozen critical North Korean operatives. We will continue to use this broad and powerful tool to expose the activities of North Korean government officials and entities.”
Friday’s announcement concerns three businesses the White House regards as “being controlled entities of the Government of North Korea,” as well as ten officials of the North Korean government, including three employees of the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, or KOMID — “North Korea’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons,” according to the White House.
KOMID is listed as among the three businesses sanctioned under this week’s order, alongside the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a government intelligence organization, and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation, described by the Treasury as being “primarily responsible for the procurement of commodities and technologies to support North Korea’s defense research and development programs.”
Per the Treasury’s orders, the sanctions prohibit the targeted persons and companies from engaging in transactions with Americans or accessing the US financial system.
The sanctions mark the latest action taken by Washington against Pyongyang after the FBI and White House concluded last month that the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was responsible for the massive computer intrusion suffered on the networks of Sony Pictures Entertainment in late November. Terabytes of stolen data have since made its way to the web, embarrassing the Hollywood firm, and online threats concerning the scheduled Christmas Eve release of “The Interview,” an anti-Kim comedy, that ultimately failed to keep the film from being screened.
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Suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist dies just before trial in New York

Posted: 02 Jan 2015 04:29 PM PST

A man suspected of being a terrorist and scheduled to go on trial in a matter of days has died in New York. Captured by the US in Libya in 2013, he was being held on charges of participating in US embassy bombings in 1998.
Libyan Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai (also known as Abu Anas al-Libi) was due to begin trial for the bombings outside the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya during which 224 people died, 12 of whom were Americans, and two of whom had been CIA employees. Jury selection would have begun on January 12.
Indicted by a New York grand jury in 2000, Ruqai has been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorist list for over a decade with a $5m (£3.1m) bounty on his head.
Ruqai had been suffering from advanced liver cancer at the point of his capture in October 2013, and he was also known to have been suffering from hepatitis C. He was 50 when he died.
US officials have maintained that Ruqai had al-Qaeda links and had been working for Osama Bin Laden after seeking him out in 1992. However, Ruqai’s lawyer, Kleinman, has said that he had left al-Qaeda prior to the blasts in 1998. However, the indictment says that he had been plotting the explosions as early as 1993 with the militant organization.
US Attorney, Preet Bharara, said that Ruqai died on Friday night after being taken from New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center to a local hospital, according to a court filing on Saturday “due to sudden complications arising out of his long-standing medical problems.” Bharara added that “his condition deteriorated rapidly.”
His widow, Um Abdullah said that his US capture exacerbated existing problems. “I accuse the American government of kidnapping, mistreating, and killing an innocent man. He did nothing,” Um Abdullah told AP.
Libi’s wife said that he had undergone liver surgery some three weeks ago, slipped into a coma temporarily, but had been transferred back to prison too early. She had spoken with him last on Thursday.
“His voice was weak and he was in a bad condition,” she said. “It seems they didn’t keep him for enough time in hospital.”
Ruqai’s case had been the subject of prolonged debate because of his illness, and the judge responsible for his case would not see his case separately from a second defendant.
Facing charges of conspiracy to murder US citizens and destroy US property, he had pleaded not guilty on both counts.
An Egyptian man, Adel Abdel Bary, and a Saudi, Khalid Al Fawwaz, were extradited from the UK regarding the same bombings. Bary pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism and was given 25 years in prison.
Source
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