PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A U.S. drone strike has killed a senior al-Qaida leader in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials said, in the latest blow to the global terrorist network.
Sheik Khalid bin Abdel Rehman al-Hussainan, who was also known as Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, was killed when missiles slammed into a house Thursday near Mir Ali, one of the main town's in the North Waziristan tribal area, the officials said.
Al-Kuwaiti earlier this year replaced Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaida's second in command, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan in June, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
But al-Kuwaiti appeared to be much less widely known and was not part of the U.S. State Department's list of most wanted terrorists, as al-Libi had been.
Covert CIA drone strikes have killed a series of senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan's tribal region over the past few years. But the attacks are controversial because the secret nature of the program makes it difficult to determine how many civilians are being killed.
Pakistani officials often criticize the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, which has helped make them extremely unpopular in the country. But senior Pakistani officials are known to have cooperated with strikes in the past, and many people believe they still do.
Al-Kuwaiti's wife and daughter were wounded in Thursday's drone attack, according to the intelligence officials. His wife died a day later at a hospital in Miran Shah, another main town in North Waziristan.
Al-Kuwaiti was buried in Tappi village near Mir Ali on Friday, the officials said.
A Pakistani Taliban commander who frequently visits North Waziristan said he met some Arab fighters on Saturday who were "very aggrieved." The Arabs told him they lost a "big leader" in a drone strike, but would not reveal his name or his exact position in al-Qaida.
The Taliban commander spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of revealing his identity to the Pakistani government.
Al-Qaida's central leadership in Pakistan has been dealt a series of sharp blows in the past few years, including the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad last year. A significant number of senior al-Qaida leaders have also been killed in U.S. drone attacks in the country.
But the terrorist group has metastasized, and many analysts believe the biggest threat now comes from al-Qaida franchises in places like Yemen and Somalia.
Violent video games: More playing time equals more aggressionPublic release date: 9-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Brad Bushman Bushman.20@osu.edu 614-688-8779 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time.
Researchers found that people who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played. Meanwhile, those who played nonviolent games showed no meaningful changes in aggression or hostile expectations over that period.
Although other experimental studies have shown that a single session of playing a violent video game increased short-term aggression, this is the first to show longer-term effects, said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.
"It's important to know the long-term causal effects of violent video games, because so many young people regularly play these games," Bushman said.
"Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes. A single cigarette won't cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years greatly increases the risk. In the same way, repeated exposure to violent video games may have a cumulative effect on aggression."
Bushman conducted the study with Youssef Hasan and Laurent Bgue of the University Pierre Mends-France, in Grenoble, France, and Michael Scharkow of the University of Hohenheim in Germany.
Their results are published online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and will appear in a future print edition.
The study involved 70 French university students who were told they would be participating in a three-day study of the effects of brightness of video games on visual perception.
They were then assigned to play a violent or nonviolent video game for 20 minutes on each of three consecutive days.
Those assigned the violent games played Condemned 2, Call of Duty 4 and then The Club on consecutive days (in a random order). Those assigned the nonviolent games played S3K Superbike, Dirt2 and Pure (in a random order).
After playing the game each day, participants took part in an exercise that measured their hostile expectations. They were given the beginning of a story, and then asked to list 20 things that the main character will do or say as the story unfolds. For example, in one story another driver crashes into the back of the main character's car, causing significant damage. The researchers counted how many times the participants listed violent or aggressive actions and words that might occur.
Students in the study then participated in a competitive reaction time task, which is used to measure aggression. Each student was told that he or she would compete against an unseen opponent in a 25-trial computer game in which the object was to be the first to respond to a visual cue on the computer screen.
The loser of each trial would receive a blast of unpleasant noise through headphones, and the winner would decide how loud and long the blast would be. The noise blasts were a mixture of several sounds that most people find unpleasant (such as fingernails on a chalk board, dentist drills, and sirens). In actuality, there was no opponent and the participants were told they won about half the trials.)
The results showed that, after each day, those who played the violent games had an increase in their hostile expectations. In other words, after reading the beginning of the stories, they were more likely to think that the characters would react with aggression or violence.
"People who have a steady diet of playing these violent games may come to see the world as a hostile and violent place," Bushman said. "These results suggest there could be a cumulative effect."
This may help explain why players of the violent games also grew more aggressive day by day, agreeing to give their opponents longer and louder noise blasts through the headphones.
"Hostile expectations are probably not the only reason that players of violent games are more aggressive, but our study suggests it is certainly one important factor," Bushman said.
"After playing a violent video game, we found that people expect others to behave aggressively. That expectation may make them more defensive and more likely to respond with aggression themselves, as we saw in this study and in other studies we have conducted."
Students who played the nonviolent games showed no changes in either their hostile expectations or their aggression, Bushman noted.
He said it is impossible to know for sure how much aggression may increase for those who play video games for months or years, as many people do.
"We would know more if we could test players for longer periods of time, but that isn't practical or ethical," he said.
"I would expect that the increase in aggression would accumulate for more than three days. It may eventually level off. However, there is no theoretical reason to think that aggression would decrease over time, as long as players are still playing the violent games," he said.
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Violent video games: More playing time equals more aggressionPublic release date: 9-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Brad Bushman Bushman.20@osu.edu 614-688-8779 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time.
Researchers found that people who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played. Meanwhile, those who played nonviolent games showed no meaningful changes in aggression or hostile expectations over that period.
Although other experimental studies have shown that a single session of playing a violent video game increased short-term aggression, this is the first to show longer-term effects, said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.
"It's important to know the long-term causal effects of violent video games, because so many young people regularly play these games," Bushman said.
"Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes. A single cigarette won't cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years greatly increases the risk. In the same way, repeated exposure to violent video games may have a cumulative effect on aggression."
Bushman conducted the study with Youssef Hasan and Laurent Bgue of the University Pierre Mends-France, in Grenoble, France, and Michael Scharkow of the University of Hohenheim in Germany.
Their results are published online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and will appear in a future print edition.
The study involved 70 French university students who were told they would be participating in a three-day study of the effects of brightness of video games on visual perception.
They were then assigned to play a violent or nonviolent video game for 20 minutes on each of three consecutive days.
Those assigned the violent games played Condemned 2, Call of Duty 4 and then The Club on consecutive days (in a random order). Those assigned the nonviolent games played S3K Superbike, Dirt2 and Pure (in a random order).
After playing the game each day, participants took part in an exercise that measured their hostile expectations. They were given the beginning of a story, and then asked to list 20 things that the main character will do or say as the story unfolds. For example, in one story another driver crashes into the back of the main character's car, causing significant damage. The researchers counted how many times the participants listed violent or aggressive actions and words that might occur.
Students in the study then participated in a competitive reaction time task, which is used to measure aggression. Each student was told that he or she would compete against an unseen opponent in a 25-trial computer game in which the object was to be the first to respond to a visual cue on the computer screen.
The loser of each trial would receive a blast of unpleasant noise through headphones, and the winner would decide how loud and long the blast would be. The noise blasts were a mixture of several sounds that most people find unpleasant (such as fingernails on a chalk board, dentist drills, and sirens). In actuality, there was no opponent and the participants were told they won about half the trials.)
The results showed that, after each day, those who played the violent games had an increase in their hostile expectations. In other words, after reading the beginning of the stories, they were more likely to think that the characters would react with aggression or violence.
"People who have a steady diet of playing these violent games may come to see the world as a hostile and violent place," Bushman said. "These results suggest there could be a cumulative effect."
This may help explain why players of the violent games also grew more aggressive day by day, agreeing to give their opponents longer and louder noise blasts through the headphones.
"Hostile expectations are probably not the only reason that players of violent games are more aggressive, but our study suggests it is certainly one important factor," Bushman said.
"After playing a violent video game, we found that people expect others to behave aggressively. That expectation may make them more defensive and more likely to respond with aggression themselves, as we saw in this study and in other studies we have conducted."
Students who played the nonviolent games showed no changes in either their hostile expectations or their aggression, Bushman noted.
He said it is impossible to know for sure how much aggression may increase for those who play video games for months or years, as many people do.
"We would know more if we could test players for longer periods of time, but that isn't practical or ethical," he said.
"I would expect that the increase in aggression would accumulate for more than three days. It may eventually level off. However, there is no theoretical reason to think that aggression would decrease over time, as long as players are still playing the violent games," he said.
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
While reporting on budget negotiations, Fox News' Mike Emanuel suggested that Europe's experience with economic austerity measures supports Republicans' calls for more spending cuts and fewer tax increases. But economists agree that cutting government spending hurts weak economies, and a recent study found that moderate tax increases would have almost no effect on economic growth.
Fox Claims European Austerity Experience "Back[s] Up" GOP Calls For More Spending Cuts And Lower Taxes
Fox's Emanuel: "Some Experts" Say European Austerity Slowed Growth "Because It Relies Too Much On Taxation While Failing To Rein In" Government Spending. During the December 7 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News correspondent Mike Emanuel discussed federal debt in a segment that compared the U.S. with Greece. Emanuel claimed that the effects of austerity measures in Europe support the Republican plan for avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff:
EMANUEL: Now, here, a leading Democrat is suggesting cutting spending too quickly is the real problem.
REID [video]: The European community now is concerned about all their austerity. There are many, many things you can do to reduce debt, but still have a stimulative aspect of the economy.?
EMANUEL:?Some experts, though, say Europe's austerity is a drag on the economic growth because it relies too much on taxation while failing to rein in the expansion of government. And that would seem to back up a Republican theme in this fiscal cliff argument.?[Fox News, Special Report, 12/7/12]
Emanuel: That "Would Seem To Back Up A Republican Theme" That Taxes Should Stay Low On The Wealthy. After Emanuel referenced statements by "some experts," he claimed that they "back up a Republican theme" in ongoing budget talks. He then played a clip of Sen. John Thune (R-SD) arguing against allowing tax rates to increase on upper income brackets:
EMANUEL:?Some experts, though, say Europe's austerity is a drag on the economic growth because it relies too much on taxation while failing to rein in the expansion of government. And that would seem to back up a Republican theme in this fiscal cliff argument.?
THUNE [video clip]: If we raise taxes on the top two rates, which is about a million small businesses, who employ 25 percent of the workforce, that'll cost us over 700,000 jobs, reduce economic growth, lower take-home pay, all those sorts of things. So that's a bad scenario.?[Fox News, Special Report, 12/7/12]
Read why higher tax rates on the wealthy would not hurt small businesses, cost us 700,000 jobs, or reduce economic growth.
But European Austerity Measures Were A Mix Of Spending Cuts And Tax Increases ...
U.K. Committed To "An Austerity Package" Of "Spending Cuts And Tax Increases." From a May 1 Al Jazeera op-ed by economist Dean Baker:
A little less than two years ago, the people of the United Kingdom made an implicit deal with the people of the United States. They installed a government that committed itself to an austerity package as the best way to deal with the ongoing effects of the recession.
Rather than trying to boost demand with increased spending or lower taxes, the Conservative-led coalition government committed itself to an agenda of spending cuts and tax increases. The argument was that the financial markets would be impressed by the UK's commitment to reducing its budget deficit. [Al Jazeera,?5/1/12]
Krugman: Britain's Austerity "Slash[ed] Spending." In a January 29 New York Times column, Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that Britain's austerity plan was "supposed to be a showcase for 'expansionary austerity,' the notion that instead of increasing government spending to fight recessions, you should slash spending instead -- and that this would lead to faster economic growth." [New York Times, 1/29/12]
... Which Experts Agree Have Hurt European Economies
Dean Baker: United Kingdom Has "Given Us ... A Beautiful Example Of How Austerity Wrecks An Economy."?In his Al Jazeera op-ed, Baker noted that, in the example of the United Kingdom, "It sure looks like the austerity critics won this one." From?Al Jazeera:
We have now had almost two years to evaluate the effects of the UK's austerity policy, which is longer than most governments get to test the results of their policy experiments. After all, President Obama got his head handed to him in the November 2010 elections, which were just 20 months after the passage of his stimulus package.
It sure looks like the austerity critics won this one. While interest rates have remained low in the UK, this has been true of every wealthy country with its own currency, regardless of whether or not it was pursuing an austerity path.
[...]
The UK economy does not appear to have done any better in terms of the rest of the picture. If austerity boosted business leaders' animal spirits, it is not showing up in the data. Nearly every component of the private sector has contracted over the past two quarters with construction leading the way,?falling at a 0.8 per cent?annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 and a?12.0 per cent rate?in the first quarter of this year.
[...]
But there are many people in positions of power who want to push austerity for reasons that have nothing to do with economic growth - and they are prepared to lie, cheat, and steal to advance this agenda. For this reason, however much we may sympathise with the people of the UK for their suffering, we should be thankful that they have given us such a beautiful example of how austerity wrecks an economy. [Al Jazeera,?5/1/12]
Krugman: European Economic Problems Are "A Failure ... Of The Austerity Doctrine."?In his?column, Krugman noted that "Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression" and that "Italy is also doing worse than it did in the 1930s." Krugman attributed both of these situations to the "failure, in particular, of the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years." From?The New York Times:
Last week the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a British think tank, released a startling chart comparing the current slump with past recessions and recoveries. It turns out that by one important measure -- changes in real G.D.P. since the recession began -- Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British G.D.P. had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.
Nor is Britain unique. Italy is also doing worse than it did in the 1930s -- and with Spain clearly headed for a double-dip recession, that makes three of Europe's big five economies members of the worse-than club. Yes, there are some caveats and complications. But this nonetheless represents a stunning failure of policy.
And it's a failure, in particular, of the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years. [The New York Times,?1/29/12]
Nobel Economist Stiglitz: "More Austerity" In Europe Is "A Mutual Suicide Pact."?A January 17 Telegraph?article quoted Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calling further austerity measures in Europe a "mutual suicide pact" and pointing out that "even though they see over and over again that austerity leads to collapse of the economy," European politicians are calling for "more austerity." From?The Telegraph:
Imposing austerity measures as countries slow towards recession is a fundamentally flawed response, said Mr Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize in 2001 for his work on how markets work inefficiently.
"The answer, even though they see over and over again that austerity leads to collapse of the economy, the answer over and over [from politicians] is more austerity," said Mr Stiglitz to the Asian Financial Forum, a gathering of over 2,000 finance professionals, businessmen and government officials in Hong Kong.
[...]
Mr Stiglitz pointed out that 700,000 public sector jobs had been cut in the United States in the past four years, removing demand from the system as unemployment spikes. The UK is set to lose a similar number by 2017.
Instead, Mr Stiglitz argued the best economic medicine is infrastructure spending, especially on transport and energy projects. He pointed to China as one country that had successfully combatted financial crises with stimulus packages. [The Telegraph,?1/17/12]
For more on how fiscal austerity hurt European economies, see here.
Experts Agree Spending Cuts Hurt A Weak Economy ...
Economist Menzie Chinn: "A Front Loaded Fiscal Contraction, Heavy On Spending Cuts" Would Make The "Current US Recovery Worse Than That Of The Great Depression."?Comparing the U.S. economy to that of the United Kingdom, University of Wisconsin economist Menzie Chinn writes on the blog?Econbrowser:
[W]e too can make the current US recovery worse than that of the Great Depression; just implement a front loaded fiscal contraction, heavy on spending cuts. Furthermore, in order to maximize the contractionary impact, harass the monetary authorities to tighten policy by inciting fears of high inflation (? la Rep. Paul Ryan), when year-on-year inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditure deflator is 2.1%. [Econbrowser,?5/3/12]
Reich: "America's Jobs Deficit Continues To Be A Much Larger Problem Than The Budget Deficit."?In a February 3 blog post, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote:
When they're not blaming Obama for a bad economy, Republicans are decrying the federal budget deficit and demanding more cuts. But America's jobs deficit continues to be a much larger problem than the budget deficit.
In fact, we can't possibly achieve the growth needed to reduce the budget deficit as a proportion of the total economy unless far more people are employed. Workers are consumers, and consumer spending is 70 percent of economic activity. And cutting the budget means fewer workers, directly (as government continues to shed workers) and indirectly (as government contractors have to lay off workers) and therefore fewer consumers.
Yet deficit hawks continue to circle. [RobertReich.org,?2/3/12]
Wash. Post WonkBlog: IMF Study Found "A One Dollar Change In Government Spending Could Knock As Much As $1.80 In Output From The Economy." A post on the Washington Post Wonkblog noted that a recent International Monetary Fund study found that "budget cuts hurt growth a lot" and continued:
A?new study?(pdf) by the International Monetary Fund raises a further warning flag for fiscal cliff negotiators in the U.S. In what it bills as the first-ever study of its kind, the fund analyzed decades of data on the world's major industrialized countries to estimate how changes in government spending or revenue affect economic output.
The news isn't good. Given current circumstances, with a U.S. economy that is growing but still trying to make up lost ground from the 2008 crisis, a one dollar change in government spending could knock as much as $1.80 in output from the economy -- what fund researchers called a "statistically significant...and sizeable" outcome. [Wonkblog, The Washington Post, 12/5/12]
... While Fiscal Cliff's Tax Increases Would Have Little Effect On Growth
IMF Study Found That Automatic Tax Hikes Under Fiscal Cliff Would Have Negligible Effect On Growth. The Wonkblog post also stated:
One brighter spot that could also influence negotiators: the growth impact of a tax hike is estimated to be negligible. The list of measures that automatically become law absent an agreement include both spending reductions and tax increases. While the spending cuts would comprise a heavy drag on growth, the fund paper suggests that a one percent rise in tax revenue would knock just 0.1 percent from gross domestic product. [Wonkblog, The Washington Post, 12/5/12]
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When an evil Prince takes over the futuristic world of Pangea chaos forms and the only way to prevent the extinction of the human race is to get the true queen into power.
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Sure make sure to make them relatively young since they need to be younger than the prince
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DUBLIN (AP) ? The top U.S. and Russian diplomats will hold a surprise meeting Thursday with the United Nations' peace envoy for Syria, signaling fresh hopes of an international breakthrough to end the Arab country's 21-month civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and mediator Lakhdar Brahimi will gather in Dublin on the sidelines of a human rights conference, a senior U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. She provided few details about the unscheduled get-together.
The former Cold War foes have fought bitterly over how to address Syria's conflict, with Washington harshly criticizing Moscow of shielding its Arab ally. The Russians respond by accusing the U.S. of meddling by demanding the downfall of President Bashar Assad's regime and ultimately seeking an armed intervention such as the one last year against the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
But the gathering of the three key international figures suggests possible compromise in the offing. At the least, it confirms what officials describe as an easing of some of the acrimony that has raged between Moscow and Washington over the future of an ethnically diverse nation whose stability is seen as critical given its geographic position in between powder kegs Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.
The threat of Syria's government using some of its vast stockpiles of chemical weapons is also adding urgency to diplomatic efforts. Western governments have cited the rising danger of such a scenario this week, and officials say Russia, too, shares great concern on this point.
On Thursday, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused the United States and Europe of using the issue of chemical weapons to justify a future military intervention against Syria. He warned that any such intervention would be "catastrophic."
In Ireland's capital, one idea that Brahimi could seek to resuscitate with U.S. and Russian support would be the political agreement strategy both countries agreed on in Geneva in June.
That plan demanded several steps by the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It would then have required Syria's opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.
If employed, the strategy would surely mean the end of more than four decades of an Assad family member at Syria's helm. The opposition has demanded Assad's departure and has rejected any talk of him staying in power. Yet it also would grant regime representatives the opportunity to block Sunni extremists and others in the opposition that they reject.
The transition plan never got off the ground this summer, partly because no pressure was applied to see it succeed by a deeply divided international community. Brahimi's predecessor, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who drafted the plan, then resigned his post in frustration.
The United States blamed the collapse on Russia for vetoing a third resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would have applied world sanctions against Assad's government for failing to live by the deal's provisions.
Russia insisted that the Americans unfairly sought Assad's departure as a precondition and worried about opening the door to military action, even as Washington offered to include language in any U.N. resolution that would have expressly forbade outside armed intervention.
Should a plan similar to that one be proposed, the Obama administration is likely to insist anew that it be internationally enforceable ? a step Moscow may still be reluctant to commit to.
In any case, the U.S. insists the tide of the war is turning definitively against Assad.
On Wednesday, the administration said several countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have informally offered to grant asylum to Assad and his family if they leave Syria.
The comments came a day after the United States and its 27 NATO allies agreed to send Patriot missiles to Turkey's southern border with Syria. The deployment, expected within weeks, is meant solely as a defensive measure against the cross-border mortar rounds from Syria that have killed five Turks, but still bring the alliance to the brink of involvement in the civil war.
The United States is also preparing to designate Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group with alleged ties to al-Qaida, as a foreign terrorist organization in a step aimed at blunting the influence of extremists within the Syrian opposition, officials said Wednesday.
Word of the move came as the State Department announced Clinton will travel to the Mideast and North Africa next week for high-level meetings on the situation in Syria and broader counter-terrorism issues. She is likely then to recognize Syria's newly formed opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, according to officials.
The political endorsement is designed to help unite the country against Assad and spur greater nonlethal and humanitarian assistance from the United States to the rebels.
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Public release date: 9-Dec-2012
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