Black adults experience dangerous spikes in high blood pressure, called a hypertensive crisis, at a rate that is five times the national average, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s Joint Hypertension 2018 Scientific Sessions, an annual conference focused on recent advances in hypertension research.

Hypertensive crisis is a complication of high blood pressure in which blood pressure quickly and severely soars to life-threatening levels. People often can avoid this dangerous blood pressure escalation by keeping their blood pressure under control with medications and lifestyle modifications.

“We studied an inner-city population to find that being black is a risk factor for progressing from hypertension to hypertensive crisis,” said study author Frederick A. Waldron, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., an emergency medicine physician at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark, New Jersey. “Now that we have effective antihypertensive medications available, hypertensive crisis and hypertensive emergency, a rare but further progression of hypertensive crisis in which organ damage occurs, should not exist to this degree among black or other patients.”

In what Waldron said is the largest case control study to date on hypertensive crisis patients, researchers looked back at emergency department medical records of more than 15,000 patients from 2013 to 2016.

They defined hypertensive crisis as blood pressure at or above 200/120 mmHg and found:

• Nearly 1,800, or 11.4 percent, of the 15,631 hypertensive patients that came through the emergency department in the three-year study were in hypertensive crisis.
• Nearly 90 percent of those in hypertensive crisis were black.
• One in four, or 25 percent, of patients with hypertensive crisis went on to develop catastrophic organ failure, including stroke, congestive heart failure, kidney failure or heart attack.
• Being older than 65 years or male, as well as having anemia, chronic kidney disease or a history of stroke and cardiovascular diseases, including high cholesterol, predicted higher risk for hypertensive emergencies. Anemia has not been identified before as a hypertensive emergency risk factor, according to Waldron.
• Insurance status and access to primary care did not affect patients’ odds of having a hypertensive crisis.

“There is no good treatment for organ damage, so the best way to address this is to develop a preventative strategy,” Waldron said. He suggests efforts to help patients take their medicine properly could help reduce hypertensive crises.

The numbers in the study may be underestimated due to differing definitions of hypertensive crisis. For example, the American Heart Association defines it as blood pressures at or above 180/120 mmHg. This study defined hypertensive crisis as above 200/120. Waldron said future studies should determine rate of adherence to blood pressure medications and follow patients in hypertensive crisis longer to determine true hypertension emergency incidence.

Wind and solar farms are known to have local effects on heat, humidity and other factors that may be beneficial – or detrimental – to the regions in which they are situated. A new climate-modeling study finds that a massive wind and solar installation in the Sahara Desert and neighboring Sahel would increase local temperature, precipitation and vegetation. Overall, the researchers report, the effects would likely benefit the region.

The study, reported in the journal Science, is among the first to model the climate effects of wind and solar installations while taking into account how vegetation responds to changes in heat and precipitation, said lead author Yan Li, a postdoctoral researcher in natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois.

“Previous modeling studies have shown that large-scale wind and solar farms can produce significant climate change at continental scales,” Li said. “But the lack of vegetation feedbacks could make the modeled climate impacts very different from their actual behavior.

The new study, co-led with Eugenia Kalnay and Safa Motesharrei at the University of Maryland, focused on the Sahara for several reasons, Li said.

“We chose it because it is the largest desert in the world; it is sparsely inhabited; it is highly sensitive to land changes; and it is in Africa and close to Europe and the Middle East, all of which have large and growing energy demands,” he said.

The wind and solar farms simulated in the study would cover more than 9 million square kilometers and generate, on average, about 3 terawatts and 79 terawatts of electrical power, respectively.

“In 2017, the global energy demand was only 18 terawatts, so this is obviously much more energy than is currently needed worldwide,” Li said.

The model revealed that wind farms caused regional warming of near-surface air temperature, with greater changes in minimum temperatures than maximum temperatures.

“The greater nighttime warming takes place because wind turbines can enhance the vertical mixing and bring down warmer air from above,” the authors wrote. Precipitation also increased as much as 0.25 millimeters per day on average in regions with wind farm installations.

“This was a doubling of precipitation over that seen in the control experiments,” Li said. In the Sahel, average rainfall increased 1.12 millimeters per day where wind farms were present.

“This increase in precipitation, in turn, leads to an increase in vegetation cover, creating a positive feedback loop,” Li said.

Solar farms had a similar positive effect on temperature and precipitation, the team found. Unlike the wind farms, the solar arrays had very little effect on wind speed.

“We found that the large-scale installation of solar and wind farms can bring more rainfall and promote vegetation growth in these regions,” Kalnay said. “The rainfall increase is a consequence of complex land-atmosphere interactions that occur because solar panels and wind turbines create rougher and darker land surfaces.

“The increase in rainfall and vegetation, combined with clean electricity as a result of solar and wind energy, could help agriculture, economic development and social well-being in the Sahara, Sahel, Middle East and other nearby regions,” Motesharrei said.

Interestingly, six letters were delivered and only 42 Russian and foreign sympathizers have signed the book of condolence for former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, that closed the end of August at the Embassy of the Republic of Ghana in Moscow.

The “few sympathizers” who signed the book came from the Russian political institutions and Diplomatic Representations of the United States and Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America in the Russian Federation.

Undoubtedly, Moscow is the seat of the Russian government. Federation Council and State Duma, ministries and departments, many international organizations, diplomatic offices and academic institutions are located here.

On August 18, at 15:00, President Vladimir Putin sent an official message to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The text of the message reads: “This remarkable man and great politician dedicated many years of his life to serving the United Nations. He served at the helm of the UN during a complicated period and did a great deal to achieve the goals and tasks of the Organization, enhancing its central role in global affairs.”

Especially significant was his personal contribution to building up the peacemaking potential of the UN and settling a number of regional conflicts, he continued.

“The world community did justice to Kofi Annan’s efforts as evidenced by the Nobel Prize awarded to him. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak with Kofi Annan personally. I sincerely admired his wisdom and courage, and his ability to make balanced decisions even in the most complicated and critical situations,” he wrote.

Putin concluded: “The memory of Kofi Annan will remain in the hearts of Russians forever. Please relate my words of heartfelt sympathy and support to Annan’s family and friends, the staff of the UN Secretariat, and the government and people of Ghana.”

In my view, there are people who slept peaceful because they did what in their opinion served humanity best. Kofi Annan will remain a firm moral hero because of his wisdom and sense of purpose. UN is supposed to be a unifying point and Annan tried the best he could to run and manage it effectively.

As Aristotle said, “Even God cannot change the past” – and/or in simple literature William Shakespeare wrote, “what is done can never be undone” and so, Kofi Annan admirably and firmly remains a global diplomat with something worth saying. Sad indeed, he is irreplaceable and his life irreversible. RIP the best diplomat and face of Africa.

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General, passed away after a short illness on August 18, 2018, at the age of 80, in Switzerland. He was born in 1938.

The family has kindly asked that no flowers be sent. For those still wishing to have their thoughts and support reflected in a gift, they suggest a contribution to the Kofi Annan Foundation: www.kofiannanfoundation.org/donate, according to the family.

The Government of Ghana has announced details of all arrangements for a State ceremony and burial, proposed to take place Thursday, Sept 13, in Accra, capital of Ghana.

John McCain personified the worst of United States, and his death ceremony brought out the most worthless elements of Black America.

The death of Senator John McCain was an opportune moment for the corporate media and bipartisan establishment elite to tighten their grip on public opinion and simultaneously attack Donald Trump, the man they can’t trust to do their bidding. It wasn’t difficult to do. White supremacy and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny never lurk far from the surface. It is easy to turn a white man into a saint when he is famous for dropping bombs on Asians who turned the tables when they captured and tortured him.

But there was clearly more than the usual white nationalism going on. Donald Trump is also at the heart of this story. As president of the United States, he ought to be the de facto leader of the Republican Party. But he eschewed their tradition of winks and nudges directed at their base of white voters and instead went straight for the racist jugular in his 2016 presidential campaign. He speaks to the nativist “America first” instincts with an occasional nod to their loss of status in a hyper capitalist economy. The very things which make him popular with white people make him unpopular with an establishment fearful that he won’t make good on the neoliberal and imperialist consensus of the duopoly. They are stuck with a president who may not do what they want.

Trump’s presidency makes one thing very clear about this country. Any crime, including war crimes, can be disappeared if the perpetrator follows the rules of decorum. Donald Trump is the graceless, boorish man who sees no need for a filter. He has no charm, no personal traits that give him an out. His persona clearly shows why he would separate families seeking asylum or let the wealthy pay fewer taxes.

Other presidents put on a show of respectability. They couched their evil doing in terms of humanitarian need, even when they were killing people. They understood the importance of being liked on a personal basis in order to have their crimes diminished or forgotten in the court of public opinion.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is easily conjured up by a gullible population with no class identity or true political ideology. Politics is treated like a kind of religion where key players are considered good or bad. If they know how to behave in public they can be considered good. The rehabilitation of George W. Bush and John McCain proves that the bad guys can be transformed into good if someone comes along who is thought to be worse.

Even George W. Bush, who didn’t “care about black people” is rehabilitated in the Trump era. Suddenly he was “not so bad” or it was said that he really cared about the country because he wasn’t a traitor who came to office with the help of the Russians. The transformation is easy if the invasion of Iraq is opposed because it is carried out by a disliked person and not because interventions are violations of international law and are therefore criminal by definition.

In the McCain deification phenomena Trump was always depicted as negatively as possible while McCain could do no wrong. Trump was disinvited from the memorial but was still criticized because he played golf when it was held. But truth wasn’t the point. Squashing the man who may put the elite system at risk was very much the issue.

Nor are black people immune from this madness. When a black man became the head of the governmental crime syndicate the black radical tradition was tossed aside as an inconvenience to the Barack Obama love fest. John McCain was deemed one of the bad guys in 2008 when he ran against Obama, but only because he was running against Obama. Congressman John Lewis compared him to George Wallace in those days. Now in the era of the bad guy president Lewis lauded McCain as “a great warrior who defended this nation’s honor in times of war and peace.” No one questioned the congressman on this bizarre inconsistency.

The gathering at the memorial service was a who’s who of mass murder. As Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Obama, and Bush all joined in lifting up one of their confederates the coverage became more and more maudlin. The more sickening the better and the more the public ate it up.

The site of Barack and Michelle Obama among the evil doers was too much for a politically immature black community to handle. When Bush handed Mrs. Obama a cough drop the corporate media pounced. Black people got the vapors along with others who once said they hated McCain and Bush.

The sight of black people eulogizing a man whose politics were so antithetical to their interests was difficult to watch.We have been transformed in the rightward shift too and erase our history and our consciousness in a sad effort to identify with a system which should always be understood as an adversary.

In one of the ironies of this story Donald Trump is vilified for avoiding the draft while McCain was bombing the Vietnamese people. Of course this means that Trump didn’t kill anyone. McCain did and is now the hero to those who want to love the good guy. A cough drop from Bush can melt hearts, but Trump’s lack of a Vietnam body count is condemned.

Trump has said that the media are “the enemies of the people.” Of course he means that they are his personal enemies. But they are ours too and their coverage of McCain’s death proves it. It is a sad day when black people blather on endlessly about patriotism and killers being honorable. We can’t allow Trump or the press to make us deranged. The McCain propaganda extravaganza should be the last time that we as a people behave so dishonorably to ourselves.

On 2-3 August more than 40 participants from the navies of all 10 ASEAN countries and China developed a joint search and rescue operation plan to assist civilian or merchant ships under distress in international waters by applying the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) – an agreement reached in 2014 with the aim of reducing incidents at sea.

This development resulted in quite a bit of hoopla among analysts and the media regarding the importance and effectiveness of CUES. According to Collin Koh Swee Lean at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, this agreement “reinforced the utility of this mechanism for preventing or mitigating close-proximity encounters between regional navies” _ _ and “its incorporation in the inaugural ASEAN-China exercise is a re-emphasis of its importance in promoting regional maritime stability”.   CUES may well enhance safety at sea for intra-ASEAN and ASEAN-China military encounters. But even this is optimistic because it reflects a misunderstanding of the origin of CUES and what it can – and cannot do.

CUES is a non- binding temporary agreement reached at the April 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium. It provides guidelines for safety procedures, communications and maneuvering when naval ships and aircraft unexpectedly encounter each other. Twenty one countries have joined the agreement– Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Tonga, the United States and Vietnam.

The context and driving force of CUES and subsequent agreements was that the U.S.-China relationship had been damaged by a series of kinetically and politically dangerous incidents between their militaries.  These incidents involved U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft like EP-3s and Poseiden 8As, and survey and surveillance vessels like the Bowditch and the Impeccable operating in and over China’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  .  CUES was an attempt to avoid or mitigate future such incidents.

At the time, this agreement was hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ that would help avoid such incidents, or if they did occur, prevent them from escalating.  In December 2014, the Chinese Navy and the U. S. Navy practiced CUES during an anti-piracy exercise in the Gulf of Aden. In 2015, the USS Fort Worth encountered several Chinese Navy warships and both used CUES in a “professional” manner.

These ‘successes’ and the recent ASEAN-China agreement have spurred a resurgence of these optimistic appraisals of CUES.  Indeed, one commentator opined that “CUES in particular will remain a significant bulwark against close-proximity encounters between opposing forces_ _” and predicted that CUES  “_ _ will become ever more critical in guaranteeing peace and stability in the South China Sea”.

This is dangerously misleading. These agreements on safe military encounters at sea are only exhortatory and do not address the fundamental strategic conundrum between China and the U.S. that gives rise to these encounters.

The reality is that in and over China’s ‘near seas’, the U.S. military has come face to face with China’s naval expansion and rising ambitions. China is developing what the U.S. calls an anti-access/area denial strategy that is designed to control China’s “near seas” and prevent access to them by the U.S. in the event of a conflict.  It is building and expanding bases, developing weapons and techniques, and undertaking exercises to advance and perfect this strategy.  The US response is the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons which is intended to cripple China’s command, control, communications, computer and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (C4 ISR).  The U.S. is trying to dominate this sphere over, on and under China’s near seas particularly with its ISR probes.   China monitors and tries to discourage these probes, and both efforts have become the respective ‘tip of the spear’ for each. In short, this is where their national security strategies collide.

The most glaring loophole is that these agreements were made “without prejudice” to either country’s legal perspectives and practices regarding military activities in foreign EEZs. They are very different.

The U.S.  argues that these ISR missions are protected by the ‘freedom of navigation’.  This is contested by China which argues that they do not pay “due regard” to its rights and responsibilities in its EEZ as required by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It also claims that they threaten its national security.  Moreover, now cutting-edge intrusive and provocative electronic and signals intelligence, and cyber techniques were not considered when UNCLOS was negotiated nearly 40 years ago.  Further, the meanings of key terms relevant to freedom of navigation have evolved with technological advances and state practice and continue to do so.

But these incidents were –and are– not really about legal right and wrong. The two powers are engaged in a sparring match with feints, jabs and defensive moves as the two militaries and their intelligence communities size each other up by probing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This sparring in itself is unlikely to trigger an overt military conflict. But it is preliminary to such conflict and thus bodes ill for the relationship.

The basic problem is that most such encounters are not unintentional or even unexpected. They are purposeful testing of limits and the sending of “messages” through actions. While CUES and similar agreements might make such encounters safer, they will not make them any friendlier or less frequent. If the US persists in provocative actions despite China’s repeated requests to cease and desist, it must expect to be challenged.

This aspect of the contest is not going to be ameliorated any time soon. General Fan Changlong, Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission urged the U.S. to decrease or halt its ‘close-in’ aerial and naval surveillance of China.  But at the 2017 Shangri-la Dialogue, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis has reiterated the US policy that it will “fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows

It is thus no surprise that the incidents between Chinese and US militaries continue. In  September 2015, Chinese military aircraft intercepted a U.S. Air Force surveillance plane in a potentially “unsafe” manner over the Yellow Sea.. In August 2017, a Chinese fighter jet intercepted a U.S. Navy Poseiden sub-hunter over the South China Sea in what the U.S. deemed a “dangerous, unsafe and unprofessional” manner. There have probably been other similar incidents which have not been reported.

As leading international relations analyst Steven Walt says, the U.S. could alter its general attitude and approach toward Chin and other countries. That would require “a certain degree of self-restraint, a willingness to treat other countries and their leaders with respect as opposed to contempt_ _.” However some US policy makers and analysts apparently take the short term view that to enter into such agreements with China would unnecessarily elevate its status to that of an ‘equal’ and makes the U.S. appear weak.

Given that the driving force behind these incidents is an intersection of strategic trajectories, they are likely to continue until the fundamental dichotomies are addressed.   Therefore optimism that CUES will enhance stability or reduce such incidents in China’s near seas’ must be tempered with reality.

*Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China

A version of this piece appeared in the South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2162974/naval-code-conduct-wont-make-us-china

Experts from the Higher School of Economics reviewed the BRICS countries’ research landscape using the 2000-2015 data from the Scopus citation database and found academic activity in BRICS to be growing at a fast pace and catching up with that of the EU countries and the US.

In 2010, the total number of publications from BRICS exceeded the number of publications from the US, and in 2014 they almost equalled those from the 28 countries of the EU. In 2015, BRICS researchers produced nearly 29% of the global publications cited in Scopus (versus 10.7% in 2010), of which 18% came from China, 5% from India, 2.6% each from Russia and Brazil, and 0.72% from South Africa.

This breakthrough has mainly been driven by the exceptionally high rate of publications from China cited in Scopus, there was an 8.5-fold increase between 2000 and 2015 bringing China’s share of publications indexed in Scopus from 4.3% in 2000 to 18.0% in 2015. A tangible growth in cited papers from Russia began in 2013, leading to a 50.8% increase in indexed Russian publications between 2012 and 2015.

A review of different BRICS countries’ positions in the 27 subject areas covered by Scopus shows that China tops the list in many areas, such as Chemistry, Computer Science, Energy, Engineering, Mathematics, and Chemical Engineering, while other BRICS countries rank high in some areas but not in others.

Russia holds leading positions in the following five areas: Physics and Astronomy; Economics, Econometrics and Finance; Earth and Planetary Sciences; Mathematics, and Materials Science.

In addition to this, HSE researchers found a tendency for BRICS researchers to collaborate more with colleagues from countries outside of BRICS. Their key partners include such established leaders in scientific production as the US, the UK and Germany. However, collaboration within BRICS has been on the rise in recent years. A notable exception is China whose share of publications produced in partnership with other BRICS countries was below 4% of all internationally-authored publications in 2000 – 2015, while Russia’s share of collaborative publications with other BRICS countries increased from 3.9% in 2000 to 11.0% in 2015.

Academic cooperation among BRICS countries has been particularly limited in contrast to active engagement between BRICS and non-BRICS countries in certain areas, such as Arts and Humanities (especially for South Africa), Chemical Engineering (especially for China), Decision Sciences (especially for Brazil), and Social Sciences (especially for South Africa). According to the study authors, HSE ISSEK researchers Maxim Kotsemir and Sergey Shashnov, these could become potential future areas of cooperation among BRICS countries.

A team of researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in the Republic of Korea have taken a step toward the development of moving target defense techniques in software-defined networks. This is a demanding cybersecurity research topic, scientists said.

This collaboration grew out of efforts of ARL researchers Dr. Jin-Hee Cho (now at Virginia Tech in the Department of Computer Science), Dr. Terrence J. Moore and Dr. Frederica Nelson reaching out to researchers in Asia Pacific regions through the international collaborative program administrated by the U.S. Army International Technology Center-Pacific.

Cyberattacks on computer systems are becoming more common. Any company with information on a computer system connected to the internet might become a victim from someone or some group who wants to steal or destroy the company’s data for their own use, or for ransom.

This is possible because of the way the Internet is set up, researchers said. In order to access content on a website, a computer needs to know where to ask for the information. Websites have an address, what is known as an internet protocol, or IP, address; however, these are not just used for websites. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address.

Cyber attackers have time to discover the IP addresses of the computers they think might have valuable information and attack them using code that is more commonly known as computer viruses or worms.

If the computer or system being attacked has a security system, such as a firewall or anti-virus software, it might be able to recognize some code as being bad and prevent itself from being infected.

What cyber attackers do is slightly modify their bad code so it is not recognized until the computer’s security system is updated or patched.

Essentially, the typical defensive response to these attacks is passive, the researchers said. The attackers have time to prepare, plan and execute their attacks, whereas the potential victims are left reacting only after an intruder breaks into a computer system.

Recently, a new proactive type of defense is being considered to protect important information in computer systems. This approach is known as moving target defense, or MTD.

“The concept of MTD has been introduced with the aim of increasing the adversary’s confusion or uncertainty by dynamically changing the attack surface, which consists of the reachable and exploitable vulnerabilities,” Cho said. “MTD can lead to making the adversary’s intelligence gained from previous monitoring no longer useful and accordingly results in poor attack decisions.”

The basic idea as it applies to IP addresses on computer networks is this: Change the IP address of the computer frequently enough so the attacker loses sight of where his victim is; however, this can be expensive, so the approach taken by the researchers in the collaboration here uses something known as software-defined networking.

This lets computers keep their real IP addresses fixed, but masks them from the rest of the internet with virtual IP addresses that are frequently changing.

Moore added that as the adage suggests, it is harder to hit a moving target.

“MTD increases uncertainty and confuses the adversary, as time is no longer an advantage,” Moore said. “The adversary has to expend more resources, such as time and/or computational power, to discover vulnerabilities of a target system, but will experience more difficulty in exploiting any vulnerabilities found in the past since their location or accessibility is constantly changing.”

According to Professor Hyuk Lim at GIST in the Republic of Korea, this proactive defense approach provides defense services before attackers get into a target system.

“Taking actions proactively requires extra overhead to add another layer of defense strength,” Kim said. “Hence, deploying the proactive defense and security mechanisms is not for free, but brings a cost because the system needs to constantly change the attack surface such as IP addresses. This cost can be mitigated to some extent by leveraging the technology called ‘Software-Defined Networking’. The SDN technology provides highly efficient programmatic and dynamic management of the network policy by removing the network control from individual devices in a network to a centralized controller. The network configuration can be defined by the SDN controller, enabling more reliable and responsive network operations under variable conditions.”

Nelson explained the reason why these SDN-based MTD techniques are critical to supporting the vision of the Army and warfighters.

“The key technology of SDN-based MTD techniques, under development by the research team, is highly relevant to support the warfighters’ mission execution by proactively thwarting potential attacks, which can protect the defense system so that the warfighters can properly execute the mission in the presence of highly dynamic, hostile and innovative adversaries within contested tactical environments,” Nelson said.

The UC team in New Zealand led the effort of developing the MTD technology called the Flexible Random Virtual IP Multiplexing, namely FRVM.

“In FRVM, while the real IP address of a server-host remains unchanged but stays hidden, a virtual IP address of the server-host keeps being randomly and periodically changed where the IP mapping/remapping (i.e., called multiplexing/demultiplexing) is performed by an SDN controller,” said Dilli P. Sharma, a doctoral student in Prof. DongSeong Kim’s cybersecurity research group at UC, New Zealand. “This effectively forces the adversary to play the equivalent of an honest shell game. However, instead of guessing among three shells (IP addresses) to find a pea (a running network service), the adversary must guess among 65,536 shells, given address space2^16. This MTD protocol is novel because it provides high flexibility to have multiple, random, time-variant IP addresses in a host, which implies the adversary will require more time to discover an IP address of the target host.”

In this research, the team formulated the architecture and communication protocols for the proposed IP (de)multiplexing-based MTD to be applied in SDN environments.

The team also validated the effectiveness of the FRVM under various degrees of scanning attacks in terms of the attack success probability.

The preliminary results evaluating the FRVM were presented at the 17th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications, or TrustCom’18, held in New York in August.

“Our next step is to study the trade-off in the FRVM between the dual conflicting goals of system security and performance, as proactive defense may introduce adverse effects when running MTD techniques while achieving enhanced security,” Kim said.

By J Nastranis

The widespread deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) – commonly known as “killer robots” – capable of operating with minimal human oversight, is likely to transform the future battlefield, accelerating the pace of fighting and delegating many critical battle decisions to machines, the Arms Control Association (ACA) has warned.

According to the ACA Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball, the unregulated deployment of LAWS could in fact lead to violations of the Law of War and international humanitarian law and increase the risk of uncontrolled escalation in a major-power crisis.

“Technologies now in development could endow machines with the capacity to search for, identify, and kill humans on the battlefield or to hunt for and destroy an adversary’s nuclear deterrent systems, possibly igniting a nuclear exchange,” alerts Kimball.

He is therefore urging the U.S. “to act more responsibly and call upon all governments represented at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to support the initiation of negotiations on autonomous weapons” at their meeting set for November 21-23, 2018 in Geneva, and to help craft “an outcome ensuring continued human control over weapons of war and the decision to employ lethal force.”

Such an agreement would appear to be within the realm of possibility. A significant number of governments have concluded that the use of fully autonomous weapons can never be reconciled with international humanitarian law and have advocated the adoption of a legally binding ban on such munitions.

Others have called for a nonbinding measure incorporating some basic principles on LAWS, like the necessity for ultimate human control. But a small minority, including the world’s major weapons producers, Russia and the U.S. argue against any new measures regulating lethal autonomous weapons systems or killer robots.

Kimball reminds that for four years, signatory states to the CCW – a treaty signed in 1980 with the aim of eliminating munitions deemed excessively cruel or injurious – have sought to assess the potential dangers posed by autonomous weapons and to consider whether new measures were needed to control them.

Most recently this investigative task was entrusted to a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), which most recently met August 28-30, 2018 in Geneva. “The experts agreed by consensus that humans should always retain ultimate control over weapons systems, but they failed to agree on a path forward other than to continue further expert-level discussions in 2019.”

The ACA Executive Director contends that in view of the rapid progress in autonomous weaponry research and development and given that many autonomous weapons systems are moving rapidly toward deployment, “it is past time for responsible governments to act.”

Current policies and practices are clearly insufficient to address the dangers posed by LAWS, avers Kimball. The U.S. government’s guidelines, outlined in a 2012 Department of Defense directive, say that such systems should allow for “appropriate levels of human judgment” over the use of lethal force. But what constitutes “appropriate”?

Kimball argues: “The Group of Governmental Experts, which began their deliberations in 2016, has had ample time to investigate the dangers posed by autonomous weapons. Although important technical issues regarding definitions relating to LAWS remain, we believe that the time for discussion is over and that the dangers of deploying lethal autonomous weapons have been sufficiently demonstrated to warrant the initiation of formal negotiations on meaningful control mechanisms.”

The appropriate place for these to begin is at the next meeting of the CCW’s High Contracting Parties, set for November 21-23, 2018 in Geneva.

Indubitably there are differences among member states on what sort of limits to place on lethal autonomous weapons, if at all, says Kimball. “But as the U.S. has argued in another negotiating forum, the Conference on Disarmament (which also operates by consensus), negotiations do not assume any particular outcome but allow for careful consideration of competing proposals.”

Kimball is therefore urging the U.S. to contribute its share to trigger the negotiations among all governments represented in the CCW on killer robots at their meeting in November and to help hammer out an agreement ensuring continued human control over weapons of war and the decision to employ these.

Catholic News Service on Friday published a redacted version of a letter sent in 2006 from a high-ranking official of the Secretariat of State, which implicitly acknowledges receipt of allegations made against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The Oct. 11, 2006 letter obtained by CNS is from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who was Substitute of the Secretariat of State, to Fr. Boniface Ramsey, who had been on the faculty of Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, N.J., from 1986 to 1996.

Sandri’s letter refers “to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo.”

Fr. Ramsey has said that when McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Washington in 2000, he contacted Archbishop Montalvo to report allegations of McCarrick’s misconduct with seminarians he had heard from his own seminary students.

At the nuncio’s request, he said, he put his concerns in writing.

Fr. Ramsey told CNS that in his letter, “I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians.”

“My letter [of] November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick,” he said.

CNS reported that though Fr. Ramsey has said he did not receive a formal response to his letter of Nov. 22, 2000, “he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.”

The immediate purpose of Sandri’s 2006 letter was to inquire about a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who had studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. The priest was being considered for a post at the Vatican.

Sandri is now prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and a cardinal.

Fr. Ramsey’s account accords with details of that offered by the testimony of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was apostolic nuncio to the US from 2011 to 2016.

Archbishop Viganò had written that Montalvo (and his successor, Archbishop Pietro Sambi) “did not fail to inform the Holy See immediately, as soon as they learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests. Indeed, according to what Nuncio Pietro Sambi wrote, Father Boniface Ramsey, O.P.’s letter, dated November 22, 2000, was written at the request of the late Nuncio Montalvo. In the letter, Father Ramsey, who had been a professor at the diocesan seminary in Newark from the end of the ’80s until 1996, affirms that there was a recurring rumor in the seminary that the Archbishop ‘shared his bed with seminarians,’ inviting five at a time to spend the weekend with him at his beach house. And he added that he knew a certain number of seminarians, some of whom were later ordained priests for the Archdiocese of Newark, who had been invited to this beach house and had shared a bed with the Archbishop.”

Viganò also stated that on Dec. 6, 2006, he wrote and delivered to Sandri a memo which detailed accusations of sexual abuse against McCarrick by Gregory Littleton, a laicized priest, which included “absolution of the accomplices in these depraved acts.” The former nuncio said he proposed in that letter that “an exemplary measure be taken against the Cardinal that could have a medicinal function, to prevent future abuses against innocent victims and alleviate the very serious scandal for the faithful.”

By Wilawan Watcharasakwet

Thai authorities released 12 people on bail Friday after arresting them for sharing a Facebook post about a British tourist who claimed that she was drugged and raped while on a beach holiday in southern Thailand, a lawyer said.

Attorney Winyat Chatmontree said police arrested his clients this week and accused them of violating the nation’s Computer Crime Act by sharing false information that threatened Thailand’s security.

The charge carries a penalty of up to 5 years in prison, he said, adding that all of his clients who were arrested in several provinces were released after their relatives posted bail of 60,000 baht (U.S. $1,875) per person.

“To commit a crime, one must have intent. But the accused shared the posts without knowing that the information was false and they thought it was just a report by foreign entities,” Winyat told BenarNews.

The 19-year-old tourist, who has since returned to her home in England, claimed she was raped in June when she visited Koh Tao Island in Surat Thani province.

In her Facebook post, she alleged that Thai police refused to accept her rape complaint. But police denied her allegations and said evidence they had gathered did not support her version of events.

The multiple arrests and the woman’s rape claim threaten to revive the controversy that engulfed the nation four years ago, when Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha apologized for his bikini remarks in the face of an international outcry over the brutal murders of two British holidaymakers on the same island.

The murders of British tourists Hannah Witheridge and David Miller in 2014 tarnished the image of Koh Tao, a famous destination for foreign backpackers. But the prime minister provoked outrage after suggesting that “beautiful girls” visiting the country should not expect to be safe while wearing bikinis.

“They think our country is beautiful and is safe, so they can do whatever they want, they can wear bikinis and walk everywhere,” Prayuth, who is also the junta chief, told top government officials during a policy address.

“[But] can they be safe in bikinis … unless they are not beautiful?”

His remarks, which drew widespread condemnation, came just two days after the battered bodies of Miller, 24, and Witheridge, 23, were found on the southern island.

“I want to apologize for everything if my remark was too harsh and caused misunderstanding,” Prayuth said then, explaining that he did not intend to insult or blame anyone and was just trying to warn people to be more careful when travelling.

No sexual assault took place, police say

During a news conference on Thursday, Maj. Gen. Surachet Hakpan, deputy chief of the tourist police bureau, said his team of investigators had determined that no sexual assault had taken place, as alleged by the 19-year-old British woman.

“Our initial investigation concluded that there is no evidence to prove that the incident has happened, not a drug claim or a rape claim,” Surachet said, adding that his investigators were still awaiting evidence from British authorities.

Other than the 12 Thais, police have also issued arrest warrants on the administrator of a Facebook page and the British editor of the Samui Times, who left Thailand in 2015, after they allegedly criticized the police for not taking the woman’s formal complaint, officials said.

Critics say Thailand’s Computer Crime Act is a broadly worded law that has been used by the military junta to curb free speech.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch urged Thai authorities to immediately drop what it called “bogus charges” against the 12 suspects.

“Thai police appear to be using computer-related crime charges against anyone who questions their shoddy investigation of the Koh Tao island rape case,” Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

By Zahid Hussain

The Pakistani government has fired a renowned economist from a newly constituted advisory body after his appointment sparked a backlash from right-wing political parties and Islamist groups.

Atif Mian, a Princeton University professor and a member of the persecuted Ahmadi faith, was named in an 18-member economic advisory council of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who rose to power after the July 25 parliamentary elections.

The appointment immediately became a subject of intense discussion on social media platforms because of his Ahmadi faith, which has been declared a religious minority under Pakistan’s constitution.

Hard-line Sunni groups Tehreek-e-Labaik and Pakistan Ulema Council and other parties supportive of the country’s draconian blasphemy laws demanded that Mian be removed from the council.

Government spokesman Fawad Chaudhry initially defended Mian’s appointment, saying he was only supposed to advise the prime minister on economic matters. “It is an economic council, not an Islamic ideology council, and those criticizing his appointment are extremists,” he told media on Sept. 5.

Right-wing political parties tabled a resolution in the Senate to seek expulsion of the Ahmadi economist.

“Atif Mian was asked to step down from the advisory council and he has agreed. A replacement will be announced later,” Senator Faisal Javed, a government spokesman, tweeted.

Saleem ud Din, a spokesman for the Ahmadi faith, said the government had the right to use anyone’s abilities for the development of the nation.

“Love for our country is an integral part of an Ahmadi’s faith and we are always ready to serve our country in any way possible. Our prayers and best wishes for Pakistan and its future prosperity,” he said.

The government’s U-turn has drawn flak from journalists, human rights defenders and media commentators.

Nadeem Paracha, a columnist for Daily Dawn, tweeted that the government had succumbed to bigotry. “Back to square one. The same old fears and politics in Naya (new) Pakistan. What an anti-climax.”

Farzana Bari, a women’s rights activist, said Ahmadis had been declared non-citizens under pressure from religious fanatics.

Senator Osman Saifullah Khan said the concept of equality of all citizens had been “thrown under the bus of expediency.”

Human rights organizations describe Ahmadis as the most persecuted minority in Pakistan. They can be jailed for up to three years for referring to themselves as Muslims.

Ahmadiyya is an Islamic movement founded in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the late 19th century, which believes that the Prophet Mohammed was not the last prophet.

Head of the Supreme Committee of Yemen Revolution Mohamed Ali al-Houthi took the Saudi coalition responsible for the failure of the Geneva talks after Riyadh refused permission for the Omani plane carrying the Yemeni delegation to participate in the UN-brokered meeting.

“Denial of permission to the Omani plane to transfer the Yemeni delegation is clear violation of human rights,” al-Houthi was quoted as saying by the Arabic-language al-Masirah news channel on Saturday.

He further voiced suspicion over Riyadh’s true intentions for denying permission to the Omani plane, and called it flagrant insult to the negotiating delegation.

The UN-brokered negotiations were suspended after the Saudi-led coalition withheld permission for the flight carrying Ansarallah delegation from continuing .

Al-Houthi called on UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths to change the venue of such talks from Geneva to Sana’a.

UN-brokered talks to end Yemen’s three-year war were meant to begin on Sept. 6, but only representatives of fugitive president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi turned up as Ansarallah insisted their plane to Geneva be allowed to evacuate dozens of injured people to neighboring Oman.

“The United Nations is now facing a choice where it should prove that it refuses the violation of the international and humanitarian law …. not allowing the Omani plane to take the delegation and the wounded is a flagrant violation,” Mohamed Ali al-Houthi said late on Friday on Twitter.

Al-Houthi said his group also wanted guarantees that their plane supplied by Oman would not have to stop in Djibouti for inspection in both directions, after being “sequestrated” there by the Saudi-led military coalition last time for months.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani highlighted the US administration’s contradictory policies on the Islamic Republic and said that on the one hand, Washington exerts pressures on Tehran and on the other hand, it conveys messages of willingness to negotiate.

“A new group has taken office in the White House who are not only at odds with the Islamic Republic of Iran but also at odds with their old and traditional friends as well as countries with whom they have close economic ties,” Rouhani said in a speech in Tehran on Saturday.

“They (the US officials) on the one hand put Iran under pressure and on the other hand send messages in various ways about negotiation,” he said.

The president wondered how Iran can trust the US administration given Washington’s hostile behavior toward Tehran.

The comments come as US President Donald Trump has voiced willingness to meet with Iran’s leadership, without preconditions, “whenever they want.”

“I would certainly meet with Iran if they wanted to meet,” Trump said at the White House on July 30.

Back in May, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei decried both the previous and current US administrations for reneging on their promises and threatening the Islamic Republic, saying that’s why Iran does not negotiate and interact with the US.

On May 8, Trump pulled his country out of the Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was achieved in 2015 after years of negotiations between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

By Jim Garamone

The consequences of a Russian-Syrian regime offensive into Idlib, Syria, against terrorists hiding there would almost certainly be a humanitarian disaster, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

U.S. military planners believe there are better, more focused ways to go after terrorists who have taken shelter in Idlib. “The consequences of a major offensive operation in Idlib will almost certainly be the suffering of a large number of innocent civilians,” Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford told reporters traveling with him.

A meeting in Tehran, Iran,, yesterday among Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime failed. Russian and regime forces have been building up around the enclave for days, and most observers expect the forces to attack into the area.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 terrorists entered Idlib to hide among the hundreds of thousands of people who went to the northwestern Syria city to escape violence.

‘Disappointed, But Not Surprised’

Dunford said he is “disappointed, but not surprised” by the failure of the Idlib talks. The city was declared as a designated deconfliction zone. “People were committed to approaching it as such,” he said. “It looks to us as if people are walking away from an agreed-upon approach to deal with Idlib.”

U.S. military officials believe there is a more effective way to do counterterrorism operations than major conventional operations in Idlib. The chairman said the United States was not talking about cooperating, but about using U.S. capabilities to spot the terrorists – even in an urban environment – and take them out with a minimum of civilian casualties.

The chairman said he has not spoken with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, his Russian counterpart, since the crisis over Idlib began, and that he is not scheduled to speak with him.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate announced that it has appointed as its exacts an archbishop from the US and a bishop from Canada “both of whom are serving the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful in their respective countries under the Ecumenical Patriarchate … [as part of] preparations for granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (facebook.com/ecumenicalpatriarchate/posts/10156674751109158).

This is the clearest public statement yet that Patriarch Bartholemew in his role as the senior and universal patriarch has decided to grant autocephaly and has rejected Moscow’s insistence that Ukraine is part of the Russian church’s “canonical territory” and thus must be subject to Moscow’s diktat.

Not surprisingly, the Moscow Patriarchate was outraged. Vladimir Legoyda, who heads the Synod’s department fore relations with society and the media said that Constantinople’s action “without the agreement of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Blessed Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine is an unprecedented crude intervention into the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate” (patriarchia.ru/db/text/5264135.html).

Such actions, Legoyda said, “cannot remain without an answer,” although he did not specify just what that “answer” might look like.

By Nurdin Hasan

Local officials and rights activists on Friday slammed a regency of Indonesia’s devoutly Muslim Aceh province after it banned unmarried couples from dining together in restaurants and advised eateries not to serve unaccompanied women after 9 p.m.

On Aug. 30, the Islamic affairs office of Bireuen regency issued a circular warning that a man and a woman sitting at the same table in a restaurant while unmarried was haram, or forbidden in Islam. But Acehnese and other Indonesians criticized the directive after a copy of the circular gathered traction on social media this week.

“It will make life more difficult for women and the local people in general, many of whom make a living working in myriad coffee shops and other eateries in Bireuen, which has a vibrant nightlife,” said Kautsar Yus, a member of the provincial legislative council from the Aceh Party.

“This kind of thing will only cause indignation at home and abroad, creating the impression that Aceh is a sinister place, when in fact it is not the case,” he told BenarNews.

The circular also warned establishments against employing lesbians, gays, bisexuals or trans-genders.

Kautsar said the directive would be hard to enforce and was unlikely to be obeyed by establishments, because many youths often spend long hours at coffee shops.

However, the head of Bireuen’s sharia office, Jufliwan, said the guidelines were intended to protect the honor of women.

“If they want to eat or drink, they can go with their kin,” Jufliwan said.

He said the order would serve as a preventive measure, and violators would only be reprimanded.

“We will advise them in a good manner. If they are unaccompanied, they are prone to street harassment,” he said. “This is for their own good.”

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia with authority to implement Sharia, the Islamic law, as mandated by its status as a “special region” with a degree of autonomy.

Sharia police in Aceh began educating the public about a broadening of the Islamic penal code in 2015. Gambling, alcohol consumption and sex out of marriage are among offenses punishable by caning in the region.

Canings have drawn international criticism and recently became a contentious issue in Southeast Asia. By contrast, in Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday attacked the practice of caning in public, saying the public caning of two women in Terengganu state this week had “tarnished Islam’s reputation.”

The two women were arrested and sentenced after they were found guilty of attempting to commit same-sex relations.

In April, Aceh officials agreed to move public canings of Sharia law violators indoors, to avoid public spectacles that draw hundreds of jeering spectators.

Authorities undertook the move following widespread criticism after two men were lashed 83 times each in May last year. The two men were found having sex, authorities said.

But public lashings were still being carried out in July. Banda Aceh police said that they were still awaiting “technical guidelines on how to implement it in prisons,” away from public view.

‘Careful consideration of the impact’

The head of the Islam Rahmatan lil’alamin Forum, Teuku Muhammad Jafar Sulaiman, described the Bireuen regency’s ruling as “a form of discrimination and inhumane.”

“Why is it always women who are targeted? A careful consideration of the impact should be made before responding to a phenomenon in society,” he said. “It is impossible to implement because it is the nature of people to socialize.”

Muazzinah Yacob, a rights activist in Bireuen, questioned the legal basis for the directive.

“Has a study been conducted that indicates that unaccompanied women cause social unease?” Muazzinah told BenarNews.

“God forbid that this is just another sensational ruling without substance because Islamic sharia should be a blessing for the universe,” she said. “[It’s] not a tool of arbitrariness for the power holders.”

Ahmad Syamsudin in Jakarta contributed to this report.

Jack Ma has announced his plans to retire from his brainchild company, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, the New York Times reports. The tycoon may switch to education and philanthropy instead.

China’s richest man is going step down as executive chairman of the $420-billion Alibaba Group on Monday when he turns 54, he said in an interview with the NYT. However, he will remain on Alibaba’s board of directors and mentor the company’s management.

Ma said the move will be “the beginning of an era” and revealed that he may now focus on education, which he “loves.” It is symbolically significant that his reported retirement coincides with Teachers’ Day in China, and Ma used to teach English before becoming a business magnate.

The Alibaba founder had revealed his passion for philanthropy and hinted at his plans for life after quitting business when he spoke to Bloomberg earlier this week. Ma, whose Chinese name is Ma Yun, said he might start a foundation of his own, like Bill Gates. However, in contrast to the American magnate, he wants to “retire earlier.” Ma even believes that he can “do much better” at teaching than he did as CEO of Alibaba.

By Perry West

For some 70 years, Catholic Charities in Oregon has helped refugees settle into their new life – assisting with everything from housing to English classes.

But with recent changes to vetting processes and travel bans, the state’s Catholic Charities will likely receive no more than 160 refugees for entirety of this fiscal year, ending in September. That’s nearly a 75 percent decrease from the estimated 600 refugees they helped settle in 2016.

The transition has been difficult, and more than half of the Oregon Catholic Charities’ refugee service staff had to be let go, said Matthew Westerbeck, program manager for Catholic Charities Refugee Services.

But the agency is adapting, and is now working to provide longer term support for new arrivals and refugees already here.

“We are focusing on employment, business development, mental health and counseling, and more intensive case management as well,” Westerbeck told CNA.

Just a year and a half ago, he said, no resettlement agency in Portland offered employment services. Agencies only provided eight months of aid from federal grants.

But now, Catholic Charities in Oregon is helping refugees find work, as part of its shift in focus to offer more in-depth and longer-term services.

“I think we are seeing significant changes in the families we offer employment services to and helping them with secure employment,” Westerbeck noted.

“We are able to have that relationship last a lot longer than eight months, [which] was the maximum before, for our agency’s ability to have contact and serve these people,” he said. “I think it’s tremendously important that we are there for them much longer than eight months.”

In some cases, refugees can be certified and matched with jobs similar to those they held in their home countries. Other times, they can receive job training in new fields.

One of the partners that works with Catholic Charities is Zomi Catholic Community, an organization for Burmese refugees that has created a program to help people obtain their Commercial Driver’s License.

In addition, Catholic Charities’ Family Support and Counseling Center is now able to receive Medicaid, providing refugees with better access to mental health services. Westerbeck said many clients suffer from PTSD due to traumatic experiences in their home country and emotional strain from the process of adjusting to a new country.

“A lot of refugees will say that the most traumatizing period of their life is the resettlement process, and if we can mitigate that in any way by helping them find a job that they can stay in, that helps them pay their bills so they are not in a housing crisis, then they can focus on other parts of their life that they are trying to rebuild.”

Westerbeck said Catholic Charities and its partners are developing services that will be available for up five years after refugees arrive in the region. Clients will likely not be enrolled in services during the entire five years, but they will have the availability to access them during that time.

During the 2016 fiscal year, the United States received nearly 85,000 refugees. This year, that number is expected to be about 20,000.

Westerbeck told CNA that many refugees arrive in the country frightened by the anti-immigrant sentiments they have seen expressed by Americans.

“The rhetoric that we see on news and have seen for the past year and a half definitely reaches all over the globe. We’ve had refugees arrive telling us at the airport that they were sacred to walk off the plane,” he said.

He emphasized that assisting those in need is an essential part of human relationships. Anyone, he said, could find themselves unexpectedly facing a similar fate – forced out of their home due to violence or famine, and in need of support.

“All of us would want to receive some amount of assistance,” he said. “It’s not a handout, it’s not any sort of a privilege thing that’s happening, this is a response to a humanitarian crisis.”

Trump and his appointees are on a binge of deregulation that masks another kind of trickle-down economics, where the gains go to the top and the rest of us bear the risks and losses.

They say getting rid of regulations frees up businesses to be more profitable. Maybe. But regulations also protect you and me — from being harmed, fleeced, shafted, injured, or sickened by corporate products and services.

So when the Trump administration gets rid of regulations, top executives and big investors may make more money, but the rest of us bear more risks and harm.

After heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency has scaled back the way the government decides whether some of the most dangerous chemicals on the market pose health and safety risks. Which may increase the profits of the chemical industry but will leave the rest of us less protected from toxins that can make their way into dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers, shampoos and cosmetics.

Scott Pruitt may be gone from the EPA, but Trump put a former coal executive in his place. Which means the EPA will continue to try to repeal the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that set the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants. If it’s repealed, wealthy shareholders may do better, but most of us will bear the costs of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and faster climate change.

Trump’s Education Department under Betsy DeVos has stopped investigating for-profit colleges. Which may result in more profits for the for-profits, but leaves many young people and their parents more vulnerable to fraud.

Trump’s Labor Department is reducing the number of workers who are eligible for overtime pay. And it’s proposing to allow teenagers to work long hours in dangerous jobs that child labor laws used to protect them from. Again, more profits for business, more cost and risk for the rest of us.

Trump is weakening banking regulations put in place after the financial crisis of 2008, even rolling back the so-called Volcker Rule that prevented banks from gambling with commercial deposits. The result: More profits for the banks, and more risk on you and me.

Trump’s gang of industry lobbyists and executives who are busy deregulating the same industries they once represented will no doubt do very well when they head back into the private sector.

But the rest of us won’t do well. We may not know for years the extent we’re unprotected – until the next financial collapse, next public health crisis, next upsurge in fraud, or next floods or droughts because the EPA failed to do what it could to slow and reverse climate change.

Don’t fall for it. Trump’s binge of deregulation is just another form of trickle-down economics – where the gains go the top, and nothing trickles down except risks and losses.

In a significant finding, Johns Hopkins researchers have revealed that those who feel sleepy during the day are nearly three times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who have a good night’s sleep, The Indian Express reports.

An analysis of data captured during a long-term study of ageing adults showed that those who report being very sleepy during the day were nearly three times more likely than those who didn’t to have brain deposits of beta-amyloid – a protein that’s a hallmark for Alzheimer’s disease – years later.

The finding, reported in the journal SLEEP, adds to a growing body of evidence that poor quality sleep could encourage this form of dementia to develop, suggesting that getting adequate night-time sleep could be a way to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

“Factors like diet, exercise, and cognitive activity have been widely recognised as important potential targets for Alzheimer’s disease prevention, but sleep hasn’t quite risen to that status — although that may well be changing,” said Adam P. Spira, Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Spira led the study with collaborators from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Bloomberg School and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

“If disturbed sleep contributes to Alzheimer’s disease, we may be able to treat patients with sleep issues to avoid these negative outcomes,” Spira added.

The study used data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) – a long-term study started by the NIA in 1958 that followed the health of thousands of volunteers as they age.

Before adjusting for demographic factors that could influence daytime sleepiness, the results showed that those who reported daytime sleepiness were about three times more likely to have beta-amyloid deposition than those who didn’t report daytime fatigue.

After adjusting for these factors, the risk was still 2.75 times higher in those with daytime sleepiness.

The unadjusted risk for amyloid-beta deposition was about twice as high in volunteers who reported napping, but this did not reach statistical significance.

It’s currently unclear why daytime sleepiness would be correlated with the deposition of beta-amyloid protein, Spira said.

One possibility is that daytime sleepiness itself might somehow cause this protein to form in the brain.

Based on previous research, a more likely explanation is that disturbed or insufficient sleep due to other factors, causes beta-amyloid plaques to form through a currently unknown mechanism, and that these sleep disturbances also cause excessive daytime sleepiness.

“However, we cannot rule out that amyloid plaques that were present at the time of sleep assessment caused the sleepiness,” added the researchers.