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Analysts say it is likely the attack had two aims - to embarrass the Turkish government and to demonstrate the group's hostility to the deployment of Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkish soil. Several members of the group are thought to be close to the Syrian regime.
In an event hosted by Defense Minister Liberman, one lone solder explained why he enlisted and continues to serve his country and G-d.
Haredi soldier Nisim Blum from the IDF haredi Netzah Yehuda Brigade participated in a traditional celebratory dinner yesterday for lone soldiers and volunteers from abroad, at the sukkah of Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman. Blum, a volunteer from the US, told his personal story. Liberman was moved by his story and even assured Blum that his American accent wasn't so bad.
An article in the Feb. 4, 2015, issue of Education Week misstated the number of states where Healthy Families America operates. It operates in 40. The program also works with families that are at-risk for adverse childhood experiences, including but not limited to child maltreatment.
An article in that same issue about changes at the top of education advocacy groups misspelled the last name of the new president of 50can. Her name is Vallay Varro.
An article about state schools chiefs' roles in the Jan. 28 issue incorrectly described Missouri Commissioner of Education Margaret Vandeven's previous work at the Missouri education department. She served for one year as deputy commissioner.
Dr. R.V. Ramani, founder of the Sankara Eye Care Institutions in India, delivering the keynote address at Sankara Eye Foundation’s annual gala Dec. 12 at the Sakoon Restaurant in Fremont.
Dr. Radha Ramani (l) and Dr. R.V. Ramani are seen here with donors.
Murali Krishnamurthy, founder and SEF executive chairman, during the foundation’s annual gala Dec. 12.
Dr. R.V. Ramani (center) with the members of the Bay Area Telugu Association.
FREMONT, Calif. — “It’s amazing to see what the synergy of like-minded people can do. This 1.3 million is not just a number, it’s 1.3 million lives who have started seeing,” said Dr. R.V. Ramani, founder of the Sankara Eye Care Institutions in India, at Sankara Eye Foundation’s annual gala Dec. 12 at the Sakoon Restaurant here.
The banquet hall was brimming with Indian American community philanthropists, business and social leaders, volunteers and donors, who gathered at the event to support the organization’s flagship mission of eliminating curable blindness in India.
Vital funds to the tune of $700,000 were raised during the night to support and empower the underprivileged experiencing sight loss in India.
“Mr. Ram Reddy announced 100,000 at the BATA banquet, one anonymous person donated 100,000 and another person gave 50K,” Murali Krishnamurthy, founder and SEF executive chairman, told India-West.
“I would request people to close their eyes and donate, so we will open more eyes. It’s your hospital, and we are helping our people back home,” he said, adding that an anonymous donor has offered to match all donations up to $1 million until Dec. 31, 2015.
The annual charity event attended by mostly Indian Americans was part of the foundation’s fundraising efforts for its new hospitals in Hyderabad, Telangana, and Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The land for the Indore hospital has already been procured while the land for the Hyderabad hospital has been identified, said Krishnamurthy.
SEF has played a pivotal role in increasing the number of free eye surgeries provided annually for the economically disadvantaged in India — from 8,000 in 1998 to over 150,000 surgeries and counting today.
Ramani, delivering the evening’s keynote address, spoke on Sankara’s history, growth, philosophy, goals and achievements.
Ramani was accompanied by his wife, Dr. Radha Ramani, with whom he founded the first Sankara Eye Hospital in Coimbatore in 1977.
“The whole values of Sankara are the five principles… serve silently, serve with humility, serve without conditions, serve with love and conviction,” Radha Ramani said at the gala, noting the importance of acts performed with love.
“People from this part of the globe are donating, and we deliver the service at the other end, and when we see the actual benefit reaching out to them, not in hundreds or thousands but beyond a million, it is a soul-fulfilling experience,” R.V. Ramani told India-West.
The evening was an entertaining one featuring vibrant musical performances and a cocktail reception and dinner.
With eight fully functional hospitals, the foundation aims to build at least 20 eye hospitals across India by the year 2020 under its Vision 20/20 project, and to perform a million surgeries annually.
The organization, one of the world’s biggest charities of its kind, is the recipient of many honors along with securing a coveted four-star rating from Charity Navigator for its sound fiscal management and commitment to accountability and transparency, said Krishnamurthy.
“We are one of the very few trusts in India which have got the status called 35 AC, which is 100 percent tax exemption by the Government of India,” Ramani told India-West.
Ramani said it takes about 18 months for a hospital to be constructed and fully operationalized, and about five years for it to become financially self-sustainable after inception.
These super-specialty eye care hospitals equipped with Lasik facilities treat not only cataract, which is a major cause leading to blindness in India, but also offer a full range of comprehensive eye care services, including ocular oncology. A program called SANQALP or Sankara quality assurance learning program, is in place, where a quality champion is identified for each hospital, who drives quality in that hospital, along with tracking 48 quality indicators on a month to month basis.
“Our site restoration rate is at 98.3 percent,” Dr. Kaushik Murali, president, medical administration, at Sankara Eye Foundation, India, told India-West.
Forty meritorious girls from the disadvantaged section are trained on a curriculum-based program to serve as technicians, and to make sure that the knowledge percolates from the seniors to the fresh recruits; in effect, Sankara hospitals have set up a knowledge management system, Murali said.
Another unique feature of Sankara is the Rural Outreach Model, which brings eye care to the doorstep of rural India. Eye care and diagnostic camps are conducted in villages every week to screen poor patients for eye problems; those needing surgeries are taken to the base hospital for treatment.
Free transportation, food and lodging are provided for patients during their hospitalization. They also receive systematic follow-up ensuring effective post-operative care.
The organization also uses technology to the maximum for a targeted intervention.
“Today, all our hospitals are linked and data transfer is real time. We have built our own app, SERVICE, which stands for Sankara Electronic Remote Vision Information System,” Bharath Balasubramaniam, president of community outreach at Sankara Eye Foundation, India, told India-West.
“The app enables us to reach out to the community, screen them and also tag them, so we are able to map diseases, identify where there is more prevalence of diabetes, cataract and hyper tension and then decide our camp location,” he said.
The month of May is always associated with V-E Day. The sentiments of “never again” were strong 73 years ago, in 1945 when the UN was founded. Since then Europe has put a huge amount of effort into creating a unique security system to prevent armed conflicts. It was never perfect, but by and large it worked. Other continents used to look on with envy and try to establish security regimes of their own.
Multiple agreements are still in force, working to prevent the worst scenarios, but today they appear to be somewhat forgotten and are failing to meet their objectives. Yet by no stretch of the imagination would anyone have imagined that May 2018 would be a month spent teetering on the brink of war, with the experts left trying to guess when it will ignite, how far it will spread, and how many actors are likely to be involved. It’s scary but that’s where we are. It’s never been this tense since the worst days of the Cold War.
On May 2, Siil (Hedgehog), the largest NATO exercise to be held in the Baltics since 1991, began in Estonia and Latvia, involving 3, 000 troops from 16 countries. It will last until May 14. Estonia and Latvia border the Russian Federation. Latvia will host five military exercises in May and June. All of this activity is intensive enough for Moscow to interpret it as preparation for war.
June will see large-scale BALTOPS and Sabre Strike 2018 exercises in the Baltics. Europe will host a US armored brigade – a force of at least 4,000 soldiers accompanied by about 90 Abrams tanks, Bradley combat vehicles, 18 self-propelled Paladin howitzers, and other vehicles.
The largest-ever NATO exercise, Anakonda 2018, will be held in Poland this summer. This is the biggest event staged by the alliance since the end of the Cold War and will include about 100,000 troops, 5,000 vehicles, 150 aircraft and helicopters, and 45 warships. Such a huge force will naturally make Russia wary. The NATO Air Policing was stepped up last month. The alliance will conduct 80 joint exercises in Europe this year, mainly aimed at prepping for a war with Russia.
This intensified training is taking place at a time when the Donbas conflict in Ukraine is really heating up. The escalation of tensions is coming on the heels of the US deliveries of Javelin antitank systems to the Ukrainian military. This is the first transfer of lethal weapons.
On May 1, the US State Department released a statement announcing that the American military is shifting to a new phase in its Syria operation. The US-led coalition, the SDF, and its mysterious “local partners” are to be involved. Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon have also been mentioned as having a role. The Islamic State has not been much of an issue for Beirut, but now Lebanon is very likely to become a battlefield that will draw in many actors, especially Israel and Iran.
Officially the mission is intended to sweep away the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) forces, but that claim should be taken with a grain of salt. Whatever is left of IS is insignificant and can be dealt with without the help of the US-led coalition. The situation in Syria is very explosive now that the US has ratcheted up the tensions instead of pulling out as President Trump said he wanted to do. A wider conflict is right around the corner there. The US-led SDF and the Syrian regular forces have recently been involved in direct clashes — a very worrisome development and coinciding with the Israeli airstrikes against Syrian and Iranian forces.
These war preparations are taking place at the same time that Prime Minister Netanyahu is accusing Tehran of allegedly cheating on the nuclear deal. The US was quick to claim that the evidence was “compelling.” The Israeli parliament has just voted to grant the prime minister the authority to declare war or to order a major military operation without the prior approval of his security cabinet.
US President Trump is widely expected to decertify the Iran deal on May 12 and pay a high-profile visit to Israel when the new US embassy’s provisional site in Jerusalem opens on May 14. The opening ceremony will be the right place and time to announce new moves against Iran — a country that works closely with Russia in Syria and elsewhere.
All the events taking place in Europe and Syria have a direct impact on Russia’s security. A spark is enough to kindle a conflict in Europe. The never-ending NATO exercises and other operations conducted right up against Russia’s borders are extremely provocative. A war against Iran in Syria appears to be almost certain, since Russian forces are deployed near Iranian positions. It will be next to impossible to strike Iranian or Syrian sites without provoking the Russian military into taking measures to defend itself. A single strike against Iranian forces could be contained but a military campaign against them will inevitably put Russian personnel at risk. Russia has some very formidable military forces positioned in Syria that must be a serious factor in any war scenario.
Tensions are running high in Europe and a wider conflict could ignite at any time in Syria. In either situation it won’t be Russia that provokes the explosive situations that threaten to deteriorate into a full-blown conflict.
Despite an increase in violence against the Sikh community in the U.S., some fashion-conscious Sikhs are reclaiming the individuality of their headdress. Soraya Roberts reports.
But in a cruel bit of irony, Americans these days are misidentifying Sikhs precisely because of their turbans. “Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, many in the Sikh community have seen an increase in hate crimes and bias-based bullying because of their religion,” the American Sikh Congressional Caucus announced in May. According to a study released last month by Stanford University, 70 percent of Americans mistake all turban-wearers for Muslims. But it was only after Wade Michael Page left six dead after opening fire on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that the FBI started tracking hate crimes on Sikhs. The most recent incident was the violent beating of Columbia Professor Prabhjot Singh in Harlem last month.
The Western view of the turban needs a makeover—and a growing number of fashion-savvy Sikhs have made it their cause célèbre to re-establish its identity in the West. A recent graduate of London’s prestigious fashion college Instituto Marangoni, Jeetinder Sandhu premiered his Autumn/Winter 2013 collection this summer at Graduate Fashion Week. His work paired brightly colored blazers splashed with Indian prints with matching jeweled turbans and caught the attention of a slew of British fashion blogs including leading site Menswear Style.
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that was founded in Punjab, India, in the 15th century. Starting in 1699, its baptized followers were required to wear five symbols of faith, known colloquially as The Five K’s: Kangha (a comb), Kara (a steel bracelet), Kirpan (a ceremonial sword), Kaccha (long underwear) and Kesh (uncut hair), the latter “in accordance with the Will of God,” according to Singh-Sohal, which is protected by the Dastar, or turban.
Jagmeet Sethi agrees. Five years ago he launched his Connecticut-based apparel company TurbanInc.com, which boasts T-shirts and accessories with slogans like “I Love Turbans” and “Proud to Be a Sikh.” He came up with the idea for the former after noticing The Keep a Breast Foundation’s cancer awareness bands, I Love Boobies, and re-jigging them to promote “turban awareness.” At the time he felt like the only game in town.
After modeling for GQ a year later, Caberwal was branded “The World’s First Sikh Supermodel.” He paved the way for Tory Burch to use Sikh jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia in her Fall 2012 lookbook and for Topman and Levi’s to promote their brands in the U.K. with Sikh artist-musician-model Jatinder Singh Durhailay.
Despite Bahra and his ilk, Sandhu believes the “small community” of Sikh fashion is growing at a “very slow” pace. According to him, it remains “very hard to find Sikhs in the fashion industry.” Sagmeet thinks this has to do with the way the turban and the beard are represented in the media. “Right now when people see a turban on the news they see it in a very negative way,” he says. “Maybe the designers are afraid that if they put a turban in their fashion line then people will be like, ‘Isn’t this something bad’?” But Sandhu thinks it’s more to do with the Sikh upbringing, noting that Sikh designers in India are also few and far between. He says that his friends in the community are often pressured to continue the family business or are pushed towards more “orthodox” professions like law or medicine.
There is the concern that in fashion, Sikhism is reduced to mere aesthetic. Singh Street Style, according to Vogue India, states its models “must be wearing a Dastar in the photo” even if they don’t regularly. Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Gaultier has been criticized for dressing non-Sikh models in turbans in his Spring 2013 menswear collection. He said he thought it “seemed right” to put his “sailors” in the headdress after seeing images of Sikh turbans. He wasn’t the first haute couturier to do so—in 2011, Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel cruise collection dressed non-Sikh male models in bedazzled turbans as well.
STOCKHOLM -- Two new climate reports out Monday highlight concerns about the pace of climate change and the impact of a warming planet.
Britain's national weather service says this year's global average temperature is on track to reach 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
That's a symbolically important level as it's halfway to the 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) that governments have set as a limit to avoid dangerous levels of warming.
The Met Office's projection Monday was based on January-September data. Officials said the El Nino weather phenomenon is having a strong impact this year, although it is not the only factor.
"We've had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we're set to reach the 1 degree C marker and it's clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory," said Stephen Belcher, director of the Met Office Hadley Centre for climate science.
The agency noted it doesn't mean every year from now will be at least 1 degree warmer "as natural variability will still play a role."
Meanwhile, the U.N. weather agency reports that levels of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, reached record highs last year.
CO2 levels rose to nearly 398 parts per million, from 396 ppm in 2013, the World Meteorological Organization said.
The CO2 level fluctuates throughout the year and the monthly average crossed the symbolic 400 ppm threshold in March 2015. The WMO said the annual average "is likely to pass 400 ppm in 2016."
Pushed by the burning of coal, oil and gas for energy, global CO2 levels are now 143 percent higher than before the industrial revolution. Scientists say that's the main driver of global warming.
WMO said methane levels reached a new high of about 1,833 parts per billion in 2014. About 40 percent of methane emissions come from natural sources and about 60 percent from human activities, like cattle breeding, rice agriculture and the extraction of fossil fuels.
"Every year we report a new record in greenhouse gas concentrations," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. "We have to act now to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to have a chance to keep the increase in temperatures to manageable levels."
World governments are meeting in Paris later this month to craft a new U.N. pact to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. More than 150 countries including top greenhouse gas polluters China, the United States, the European Union and India have pledged to cut or curb their emissions in the next decade.
Meanwhile, climate change is already transforming the Earth, melting Arctic sea ice, intensifying heat waves, and warming and acidifying the ocean.
The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that sea levels could rise as much as 21 feet in the next century if global warming continues unchecked, partly due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and shrinking glaciers triggered by the rise in heat-trapping, greenhouse gas emissions.
"As the planet warms, the poles warm even faster, raising important questions about how ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will respond," Andrea Dutton, a University of Florida geochemist and lead author of a study on rising sea levels published in Science last July, told CBS News. "While this amount of sea-level rise will not happen overnight, it is sobering to realize how sensitive the polar ice sheets are to temperatures that we are on path to reach within decades."
Dangerous effects could include flooding of coastal cities and island nations, disruptions to agriculture and drinking water, and the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.
A successful cyberattack on the nation's power grid could bring unimaginable chaos. Incident reporting from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team indicates that the grid is a popular target among adversaries, with 59 percent of the 256 critical infrastructure attacks in 2013 involving the energy sector, particularly electrical systems.
The proliferation of network-based industrial control systems for critical infrastructure is multiplying the number of entry points and potentially creating attack opportunities for determined adversaries. Last October, for example, two engineers discovered a vulnerability in software code widely used in electricity distribution that could be used to facilitate a cyberattack.
A new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center recommending that the electric industry create a new organization to set cybersecurity requirements and that government at all levels collaborate on streamlining the process for responding to attacks. The report's authors include former National Security Agency and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.
The bulk power generation systems at the heart of the grid and nuclear generators in particular are subject to mandatory cybersecurity standards developed by the industry and backed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But the standards do not cover the local distribution facilities that move power to users.
The report advocates creating a new industry organization called the Institute for Electric Grid Cybersecurity. It would be modeled on the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which was established in the aftermath of the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The organization accredits and evaluates nuclear plants on safety and performance, and those ratings factor into insurance costs.
Although participation in the proposed new group would be voluntary, the federal government could offer incentives to companies that comply with industry standards -- backstopping insurance policies for liabilities incurred during cybersecurity events, for example.
The report also urges the government to clarify its plans for responding to a cyberattack on the electrical grid, including establishing a chain of command among federal agencies. There should also be a clear protocol in place for triggering a response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Currently, plans for responding to weather-related and cybersecurity disasters could come into conflict in the event of a widespread, long-term power outage. Additionally, Hurricane Sandy showed that existing processes for restoring the power grid are inadequate.
"The federal government is always at the risk of being in the way by having too many points of contact," said Paul Stockton, managing director of economic advisory firm Sonecon and a former assistant secretary for homeland defense and Americas' security affairs at the Defense Department, during a Bipartisan Policy Center event on Feb. 28. "Industry has to lead the definition of requirements so the federal government can be useful rather than being in the way."
Currently, 28 states support a ban on fully autonomous weapons. Austria, Brazil, and Chile have formally proposed the urgent negotiation of “a legally-binding instrument to ensure meaningful human control over the critical functions” of weapons systems.
However, a minority of states at the November 2018 annual meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, used consensus rules to thwart meaningful diplomatic progress. Russia, Israel, South Korea, and the USA indicated at the meeting that they would not support negotiations for a new treaty, but the poll results show that more than half of respondents in Russia (59%) and the USA (52%) oppose autonomous weapons. More than half of respondents opposed autonomous weapons in China (60%), South Korea (74%) and the UK (54%), which are among the leading states developing this technology.
The survey by Ipsos MORI was commissioned by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and conducted in December 2018. The sample size was 500 – 1,000 people in each country.
Today women in Canada and the Global South are calling for an end to the daily violence against women everywhere, in all its forms.
Social Justice Week features some amazing speakers, lectures and workshops on issues related to Indigenous solidarity, decent work, migrant workers' rights, and Black Lives Matter.
The Leap Manifesto is the visionary platform we need to bring together all of our movements into a diverse, pluralistic, democratic project to save the planet and everyone on it.
Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift have a lot in common. Both are beautiful, blonde chart-topping country-pop stars and both, according to reports, hate each other. So are the rumors true?
Swift vs. Underwood: Who's Grammy performance was better?
According to Underwood's new interview with CBS This Morning, not at all!When Gayle King asked Underwood if a feud with Swift existed, the "Blown Away" singer replied, "No, not that I know of, at least."Underwood blames magazines, newspapers and gossip TV shows for citing sources and insiders, saying that she's "read the most ridiculous things about myself when people do that."
Watch Underwood discuss the "feud" below. Plus: Find out what her favorite Swift song is!Underwood's full interview will air on Wednesday's CBS This Morning.
CBS News' Streaming Service Touts Non-partisan Election CoverageGet your midterm election fix anytime and anywhere!
The Army Training Concept (ATC) is a new Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) concept capability plan for the future 2012-2020 Modular Force. The ATC describes the training requirements and capabilities for the Army to generate and sustain trained units that can successfully conduct full-spectrum operations (FSO) across the spectrum of conflict in an uncertain joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multinational (JIIM) environment over an extended period. Separate from and complementary to the Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS), it informs the development of the Army Training Strategy, and exploits the synergy across the training domains to achieve Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) objectives.
The Army Training Concept scheduled for colonel-level review in June 2010, is planned for publishing, as a TRADOC PAM 525 series document, in October 2010.
The seasoned combat-ready force we have today has effectively conducted FSO in a complex, irregular warfare (IW) environment for eight years. But we now must provide the next generation of leaders with the right training environment to perform FSO successfully anywhere along the spectrum of conflict. Constrained dwell time has caused leaders to use CTCs to train tasks previously trained at home station. Further, the IW focus of the past decade has limited training from being conducted at the high-end of the spectrum of conflict. To enhance and facilitate home station FSO training against hybrid (conventional, irregular, terrorist, and criminal) threats, the Army is developing the Integrated Training Environment (ITE)-a seamless interconnected combination of live, virtual and constructive simulations; scenarios; and command and control systems. The ITE is the backbone of the ATC and begins fielding in 2012. It will facilitate Brigade-level FSO Mission Essential Task List proficiency at home stations.
The draft ATC is being staffed across the Army for comments. In 2012, the Army will field ITE infrastructure across 12 posts, ending in 2016. As dwell time improves, leaders will be able to maximize home station training and shift the CTC focus to a more demanding FSO culminating training event.
Why is the Army Training Concept important to the Army?
The ATC identifies the requirements for future FSO training capabilities. Once documented and approved in the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS), these capabilities will have a better chance of being funded in the Program Objective Memorandum.
"What I saw in their faces was absolute pride to be out here."
- Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commending the determination of the athletes at the Warrior Games, also pointed out the importance of the Warrior Games to servicemembers in allowing young men and women to compete and get those "competitive juices going again."
-Warrant Officer Johnathan Holsey, along with Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Will Wilson helped, the struggling, Sgt. Monica Southall to finish the Warrior Games cycling competition, said that the three were bound by not only their military service but their experiences as wounded and injured servicemembers.

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