Shorter Question Everything

Israel | Cyberwar | Biowarfare | Torture
•READ: Netanyahu races to secure votes for U.S. plan:

Despite seemingly premature congratulations from President Barack Obama, Israel’s prime minister was scrambling Monday to secure enough Cabinet votes to pass a U.S. proposal to halt West Bank settlement construction for 90 days, aimed at restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu is under heavy pressure to move forward with the plan, which could lead to critical negotiations on Israel’s final borders with a future Palestine. Although Israeli officials say the plan includes an unprecedented gift of 20 stealth warplanes to Israel, Netanyahu faces opposition from hard-liners inside his coalition government who oppose limits on settlement construction in principle and fear it will create pressure for further concessions.

•READ: For 18 Minutes, 15% of the Internet Routed Through China:

olsmeister writes

“For 18 minutes this past April, 15% of the world’s internet traffic was routed through servers in China. This includes traffic from both .gov and .mil US TLD’s.”

The crazy thing is that this happened months ago, and nobody noticed. Hope you’re encrypting your super secret stuff.

•READ: Stuxnet Was Designed To Subtly Interfere With Uranium Enrichment:

“Wired is reporting that the Stuxnet worm was apparently designed to subtly interfere with uranium enrichment by periodically speeding or slowing specific frequency converter drives spinning between 807Hz and 1210Hz. The goal was not to cause a major malfunction (which would be quickly noticed), but rather to degrade the quality of the enriched uranium to the point where much of it wouldn’t be useful in atomic weapons. Statistics from 2009 show that the number of enriched centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 at around the time the worm was spreading in Iran.”

•READ: East Africa could harbor future of bioterror:

Security forces from the United States have voiced concern about the run-down facilities that house such pathogens as anthrax spores, Ebola and Marburg viruses in Uganda and hope to alleviate these concerns in the future. A recent delegation to East Africa from the U.S. passed through Entebbe, a quiet city on the shores of Lake Victoria. The visitors were concerned that such an area could become the front line of the counter terrorist struggle with biological warfare becoming a major part of the terrorists’ arsenal, Scotland on Sunday reports. A powerful Islamist insurgent group known as the Shabab has raised security concerns in East Africa recently. The group took responsibility for the suicide bombings in Uganda that occurred as crowds were gathering for the World Cup finals. The security visit was part of the 2004 expansion of the Nunn-Lugar program that had originally been created to dismantle warheads in former Soviet states, Scotland on Sunday reports. Pentagon officials lead by Indiana senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) visited Ugandan labs as part of a three-country tour of East Africa, Burundi and Kenya. The Ministry of Agriculture, which was built in the 1920s, has multiple security vulnerabilities, including a ripped chain link fence and broken windows. Doctors are so underfunded that they have learned to use cell phone cameras on top of microscopes to study bacteria. “These are cries for assistance that the U.S. is eager to provide,” Lugar said, according to Scotland on Sunday. [link is dead - ed]

•READ: UN Expert Urges Full US Torture Investigation:

The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it. Juan Ernesto Mendez told Reuters he also hoped to visit Iraq to probe a “very widespread practice of torture” of detainees with the help of coalition forces, revealed in confidential U.S. files issued by Wikileaks.