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Since the days of John le Carre, it’s been hard to find a good spy in crime thrillers – The Canberra Times

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

life-style, books,

I still blame Alec Guinness. Before becoming a Jedi knight and a knight of the realm to boot, Guinness starred as John le Carre's master spy, George Smiley, in two BBC television series. He inhabited that character with such guile and finesse as to appropriate Smiley from his rather vexed creator. In my view, Guinness as Smiley did more besides. He was the forerunner of Netflix noir, starting the transfer of high-quality, long-form, morally ambiguous thrillers from print to small screen. Spy novels have never been the same. Guinness' posthumously pernicious impact is evident throughout Alan Furst's 15 nuanced and atmospheric stories about Europe in the 30s and 40s, but nowhere more so than in the last volume, Under Occupation (Weidenfeld and Nicholson). Although only one of Furst's books has been adapted for television (tritely and tediously), all his work is distinctly cinematic. Furst's palette is shades of grey. Grey dominates his repeated scenes of drizzle, fog, rain and shadows. Grey also catches the flaws, hesitations and betrayals which entrap his characters. Any spy story set in the Nazi era must be a morality tale. Good must battle evil, decent people remain brave enough to hope for a better world, and the machinations of the Gestapo - however dastardly and deft - be thwarted. Furst's dilemma is that he cannot adequately depict evil. Take this last book. Characters walk out of prison after a murder charge,and blithely board a ship for Sweden to escape pursuing Nazis. A purloined torpedo miraculously appears, to be hidden on a tugboat which turns up just as providentially. The cartoon cast includes "a Falstaff with a black eye patch" and an author who muses at inordinate length about writing spy novels set during the 1930s. Furst used to display a Zen-like gift for building up both seedy atmosphere and emotional intensity. He continues to do that, but at the expense of suspense and surprise. Odd though this sounds, as mortal enemies of civilisation the Nazis deserve better. They were utterly committed, implacably ruthless, and rather smart as well. Blundering buffoons would not have lasted in Gestapo ranks. At the other end of the spectrum, le Carre always respected the "principal adversary", to borrow a Russian term. Guinness never played Karla, Smiley's KGB adversary in a deadly espionage duel. Karla is commended for precisely those attributes which Furst's Nazis lack. He is a step ahead, deploying any tool to hand, utterly determined to win. Hidden within the State security apparatus in Beijing must be lots more Karlas. For spy novelists, however, those Chinese espiocrats remain indecipherable. One exception to that judgement is the excellent Night Heron by Adam Brookes, a tense, tough-minded tale of Beijing conspiracies which benefits from first-hand knowledge of China. For others, the new espionage adversary might well resemble a leering Bond villain or Dr Fu Manchu in a Mao suit - inscrutable, foreign in every way, acknowledging no scruples. If our adversaries are now unintelligible, our own side has become distinctly boring. Where le Carre argued that spying was watching and waiting, the craft now entails watching - a screen. Imagine creating a novel around a figure like Edward Snowden, hunched down behind his computer, lost in algorithms. Hacking and phishing only come to life if the computer techo also has a hidden life, as does Lisbeth Salander with her dragon tattoo and zippy motorbike. Again, television shows how to make technology intriguing; the heavily-armed hacker with an odd past in Unit 42 is the star on Belgium's police payroll. Those spy novels which still work recognise the truth of Pogo's maxim: "we have met the enemy and he is us". Here, Stella Rimington, who once ran the domestic intelligence service in London (her most recent is The Moscow Sleepers), lets the side down by making her hunters and gatherers twee, homely, as if they paused for afternoon tea or a stroll in Green Park. Despite all her actual experience, Rimington's narratives read like old-fashioned country house whodunnits. By contrast, Mick Herron has now published eight stories (up to Joe Country) about misanthropic losers exiled from Ms Rimington's old agency, derisorily named the Slow Horses. Their eccentric gifts are used most to fend off treachery from their erstwhile colleagues. Mainstream spies want the Slow Horses expelled, forgotten and, if possible, erased. Post-Smiley and therefore post-Cold War, John le Carre has had the same Pogo'esque intuition about perfidy at home. His new novel, Agent Running in the Field, assumes that British espionage agencies still harbour spies (nave and silly ones, in this case), that spy hunters fall into love with their prey, and that adroit use of a marriage registry can foil all the surveillance techniques of MI5, MI6 and MI whatever. A simple yearning is evident, not unlike Furst's, for good to be given a fair go.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/9gmjQxX8MpSQh6J68NHMnY/ae5a0d0c-3c43-43a3-acd8-19fa2b3d1df7.jpg/r12_0_4987_2811_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

I still blame Alec Guinness.

Before becoming a Jedi knight and a knight of the realm to boot, Guinness starred as John le Carre's master spy, George Smiley, in two BBC television series. He inhabited that character with such guile and finesse as to appropriate Smiley from his rather vexed creator.

Modern spies are often hackers. Picture: Shutterstock

In my view, Guinness as Smiley did more besides. He was the forerunner of Netflix noir, starting the transfer of high-quality, long-form, morally ambiguous thrillers from print to small screen. Spy novels have never been the same.

Guinness' posthumously pernicious impact is evident throughout Alan Furst's 15 nuanced and atmospheric stories about Europe in the 30s and 40s, but nowhere more so than in the last volume, Under Occupation (Weidenfeld and Nicholson).

Although only one of Furst's books has been adapted for television (tritely and tediously), all his work is distinctly cinematic. Furst's palette is shades of grey. Grey dominates his repeated scenes of drizzle, fog, rain and shadows. Grey also catches the flaws, hesitations and betrayals which entrap his characters.

Any spy story set in the Nazi era must be a morality tale. Good must battle evil, decent people remain brave enough to hope for a better world, and the machinations of the Gestapo - however dastardly and deft - be thwarted.

Furst's dilemma is that he cannot adequately depict evil. Take this last book. Characters walk out of prison after a murder charge,and blithely board a ship for Sweden to escape pursuing Nazis. A purloined torpedo miraculously appears, to be hidden on a tugboat which turns up just as providentially.

The cartoon cast includes "a Falstaff with a black eye patch" and an author who muses at inordinate length about writing spy novels set during the 1930s.

Furst used to display a Zen-like gift for building up both seedy atmosphere and emotional intensity. He continues to do that, but at the expense of suspense and surprise.

Odd though this sounds, as mortal enemies of civilisation the Nazis deserve better. They were utterly committed, implacably ruthless, and rather smart as well.

Blundering buffoons would not have lasted in Gestapo ranks.

At the other end of the spectrum, le Carre always respected the "principal adversary", to borrow a Russian term.

Guinness never played Karla, Smiley's KGB adversary in a deadly espionage duel. Karla is commended for precisely those attributes which Furst's Nazis lack.

He is a step ahead, deploying any tool to hand, utterly determined to win.

Imagine creating a novel around a figure like Edward Snowden, hunched down behind his computer, lost in algorithms. Hacking and phishing only come to life if the computer techo also has a hidden life.

Hidden within the State security apparatus in Beijing must be lots more Karlas. For spy novelists, however, those Chinese espiocrats remain indecipherable.

One exception to that judgement is the excellent Night Heron by Adam Brookes, a tense, tough-minded tale of Beijing conspiracies which benefits from first-hand knowledge of China.

For others, the new espionage adversary might well resemble a leering Bond villain or Dr Fu Manchu in a Mao suit - inscrutable, foreign in every way, acknowledging no scruples.

If our adversaries are now unintelligible, our own side has become distinctly boring.

Where le Carre argued that spying was watching and waiting, the craft now entails watching - a screen.

Again, television shows how to make technology intriguing; the heavily-armed hacker with an odd past in Unit 42 is the star on Belgium's police payroll. Those spy novels which still work recognise the truth of Pogo's maxim: "we have met the enemy and he is us".

Here, Stella Rimington, who once ran the domestic intelligence service in London (her most recent is The Moscow Sleepers), lets the side down by making her hunters and gatherers twee, homely, as if they paused for afternoon tea or a stroll in Green Park. Despite all her actual experience, Rimington's narratives read like old-fashioned country house whodunnits.

By contrast, Mick Herron has now published eight stories (up to Joe Country) about misanthropic losers exiled from Ms Rimington's old agency, derisorily named the Slow Horses. Their eccentric gifts are used most to fend off treachery from their erstwhile colleagues. Mainstream spies want the Slow Horses expelled, forgotten and, if possible, erased.

Post-Smiley and therefore post-Cold War, John le Carre has had the same Pogo'esque intuition about perfidy at home. His new novel, Agent Running in the Field, assumes that British espionage agencies still harbour spies (nave and silly ones, in this case), that spy hunters fall into love with their prey, and that adroit use of a marriage registry can foil all the surveillance techniques of MI5, MI6 and MI whatever.

A simple yearning is evident, not unlike Furst's, for good to be given a fair go.

Link:
Since the days of John le Carre, it's been hard to find a good spy in crime thrillers - The Canberra Times

‘Homeland’ on Showtime is TV’s most adaptable show – Los Angeles Times

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

Yes, Homeland is still on.

In conversation and on social media, the longevity of Showtimes counterterrorism drama, which begins its eighth and final season Sunday, often comes as a surprise. After all, its been more than eight years since its gripping first season which premiered almost exactly one decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 dominated the cultural conversation, and its favor with Emmy voters and viewers alike peaked shortly thereafter. But theres a reason the series, created by 24" veterans Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa from Gideon Raffs Israeli Prisoners of War, has survived a sea change or several in both the medium of television and the so-called war on terror.

Homeland is the most adaptable show on television.

Conceived as the dual portrait of a mentor Mandy Patinkins Saul Berenson shepherding his protg Claire Danes Carrie Mathison through the thornbush of the Central Intelligence Agency, the series has since been a cat-and-mouse game, a fraught romance, a stripped-down spy thriller and a domestic political drama; a critics darling, a disappointment, a comeback kid. It embodies, perhaps more than any series to emerge from the mediums recent Golden Age, the feature that differentiates TV from most other art forms: evolution over time.

The image that comes to mind is origami, Danes says. You can keep refolding the paper, and it can take a different shape.

Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison and Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody in Homeland.

(Kent Smith / Showtime)

Even at the outset, the shape of Homeland was far from certain. The first series under both Showtime chief David Nevins and Fox 21 head Bert Salke, Homeland attracted an onerous amount of attention, Gansa says particularly in the form of tremendous opposition to Danes as Mathison, a bipolar intelligence officer, and Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, an American POW she suspects of being a sleeper agent for the terrorist Abu Nazir.

I dont think anyone wanted me to play him, Lewis laughs.

Lewis, of course, landed the role, and Gansa and company ultimately held off executives desire to cast Robin Wright or Maria Bello in the lead arguing that the characters bipolar disorder necessitated a younger actress, because by her 40s a person with the disorder would typically have devised a way to manage it, or not. Once production was underway, what swiftly emerged was the electric chemistry between Danes and Lewis to the point that a key scene in the pilot was rescripted and reshot to take advantage of the dynamic, according to writer and executive producer Chip Johannessen. Gansa remembers his assistant imploring him to watch the dailies of an early scene: It was so visceral and apparent on the screen that [it] wound up changing the course of the show, he says. We started writing to that in a way that we hadnt necessarily expected to before.

The resulting arc, in which Brody and Carrie mix an illicit relationship with mutual mistrust, helped make the series an object of intense fan interest. Season 1 earned universal acclaim from critics, according to the review-aggregation site Metacritic, and eventually won Emmys for drama series, lead actress, lead actor and writing for a drama series.

The first season started airing as we were filming, so I got pretty direct confirmation just from people on the street, Danes recalls. Insane enthusiasm. People were literally running out of buildings and grabbing me and saying, Im obsessed with your show! It was hard to ignore the impact.

For Patinkin, the confirmation came closer to home. A screening of the pilot episode at a party in the Hamptons led his own children to warn him that Homeland was about to be a very big deal: They turned to me and they said, You better be prepared that your private life is over.

Mandy Patinkin, photographed on the grounds of the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, plays veteran intelligence officer Saul Berenson in Homeland.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Though Brodys abortive attempt on the life of the president of the United States in the Season 1 finale attracted more attention, the main characters romantic arc culminates in Carries unbearably tense interrogation of Brody in the Season 2 entry Q&A one of the finest hours of television produced in the last decade. (I got the script and I went into pure panic, because it was 40 pages in one room, says the episodes director, Homeland executive producer Lesli Linka Glatter.) But Q&A is also the moment to which a number of Homeland veterans trace the series ensuing struggles: By the end of Season 3, scarcely two years after it was hailed as one of TVs best shows, the New Yorker wondered, Where Did Homeland Go Wrong?

After we wrote [Q&A], it became much more difficult to write the show, Gansa admits, describing as strained a subsequent subplot in which Brody turns double agent, with Carrie as his handler. It became really hard to tell as compelling Brody stories as we did before that interrogation episode, because now everybody was on the same page.

Complicating matters was Showtimes interest in continuing the relationship that had fueled its smash hit for as long as possible. The writers had seen dramatic potential in extending Brodys arc, originally planned for one season, into a second. But extending it beyond that came at executives behest.

I remember the guys writing the end of Season 2 with me dying and going to pitch it to Showtime and Showtimes jaws hitting the floor and [them] saying, What do you mean? Brodys not going anywhere, Lewis says.

Keeping that thing going yet another year was very much a studio/network negotiation, Johannessen recalls. They said, Well pick you up for two more seasons if you agree to keep that relationship in play.

As writing Homeland became more challenging in the face of these constraints, so did watching it: With the air let out of Brody and Carries relationship, Carrie and Saul on the outs and Brodys daughter, Dana (Morgan Saylor), embroiled in teenage mischief with Timothe Chalamet! more appropriate to a family melodrama, critics and fans alike began to turn against the series. Its impressionistic main titles and Carries crying jags even came in for satire via Anne Hathaway on Saturday Night Live.

Lewis blames the abrupt change to his characters fate for the improbable situations and narrative leaps that followed criticisms of which the writers were acutely, even painfully, aware. It was flattering that they wanted to keep Brody around, he says. But I was also aware that I was the problem.

Rupert Friend as black ops specialist Peter Quinn in Homeland.

(Joe Alblas / Showtime)

The solution came in the Season 3 finale, The Star, in which Brody is hanged in Tehran for killing the head of Iranian intelligence a decision made against the networks wishes. At that point, there was some begging that went on, Gansa says. Please dont do this.

It also left the writers to face that most seductive, and terrifying, opportunity: the clean slate.

Enter spy camp, an annual meeting at Washington, D.C.'s City Tavern Club between the Homeland team and an array of current and former intelligence officers, State Department officials and journalists. (One year, Edward Snowden was among the speakers.) Both Gansa and Johannessen say that the conclave was crucial to the next stage of the series evolution.

Since the start of Season 4, Homeland, inspired by these marathon sessions with the trades top insiders, has metamorphosed into a slim, spry thriller structured almost like an anthology, with each 12-episode arc focused on a new challenge and set in a new locale: drone warfare in Pakistan, for instance, or ISIS sympathizers in Berlin.

At the start of the fourth season, Carrie, now the CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, green-lights a strike on a Pakistani wedding, killing dozens of civilians but not her intended target, Taliban leader Haissam Haqqani. In reprisal, Haqqani kidnaps Saul, creating a diversion for his real endgame: a devastating attack on the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. The season climaxes with a pair of the series strongest episodes, Theres Something Else Going on and 13 Hours in Islamabad, a riveting, two-part indictment of Americas conduct of the war on terror that felt like Homelands return to form.

The biggest triumph of the show, apart from the first season, was the fourth season, Gansa says. The show could have ended much more quickly if that season didnt work.

Though Season 4 constituted proof of concept, per Johannessen, this new narrative approach also forced Homeland to become even more nimble shifting the focus to Berlin, ISIS and Russian interference in Season 5, and then to domestic politics and locations in Seasons 6 and 7.

Usually, with series TV, it gets easier year by year. You have it dialed in, Glatter explains, comparing the experience to making a pilot episode every year. Homeland never got easier, because we were always starting over.

While the success of Seasons 4 and 5 revived the series critical reputation, and may have stanched the flight of its fans following Brodys death, the same period saw increased scrutiny of Homelands depiction of Muslims. Detractors called it bigoted and Islamophobic, Pakistani officials complained that it maligned a close U.S. ally, and graffiti artists hired to create background art for Season 5 wrote Homeland is racist in Arabic in a scene that made it to air. As if in response, the next two seasons turned their attention to Russian meddling, the deep state and the American far right.

I think there was some validity to those criticisms, Danes says. It was unfortunate that we were a little too glib or a little too reductive in our portrayal of those characters, but I think our response to it was quick and sincere.

Gansa agrees, adding that the criticisms 100%" made the series creative team more cognizant of the messages it conveyed about Muslims. I thought that was great, he says of the graffiti incident. It was a nonviolent, subversive way of getting a message across.

Still, the accusations of Islamophobia left a lasting mark on Homeland. According to Johannessen, two scribes set to join the writers room for the final season one of Lebanese background and the other Iranian dropped out at the last second, which he believes was a result of pressure from people in their communities not to support Homeland.

The diversity of our writers room was not great. And we made an effort all the time to bring in writers, and we had trouble staffing, Johannessen says. By the time its maybe keeping you from getting people you want, thats not good.

Elizabeth Marvel as President-elect Elizabeth Keane in a scene from Homeland.

(JoJo Whilden / Showtime via AP)

After filming consecutive seasons on location in South Africa (standing in for Pakistan) and Germany, Danes, Patinkin and the rest of the team were ready to come home. A discussion at that years spy camp about the practice of briefing the president-elect on national security issues inspired the New York-set Season 6, in which Carrie advises Sen. Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel), newly elected president on an antiwar platform that antagonizes the intelligence community. And, as with a number of key moments in Homelands evolution, the timing of the series homecoming was serendipitous: The season premiered on Jan. 15, 2017, five days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Though Gansa, Johannessen and Glatter maintain that Keane was not specifically modeled on Trump or his opponent, Hillary Clinton, the real-life campaign cast an unavoidable shadow over Season 6 one that resulted, yet again, in exasperated critics wondering what went wrong. They were not alone in the sense that the series had, for once, been outflanked by events.

There was definitely a feeling like, You cannot match the craziness of this situation, so you just have to stay away from it, Johannessen says, citing HBOs Veep as another series to face the same problem.

That was the hardest moment for us, actually that period during the election, when we were waiting to see who was going to actually come into office, Danes recalls of developing the season. "[The writers] were really stymied. I felt them to be creatively frustrated because of that lack of direction.

Both Keanes character and the deep state machinations that propel the seasons plot are an awkward fit, too far from the facts to seem prescient and too near to feel original. Even so, certain aspects of the production dovetailed eerily closely with events on the ground.

There was a moment that we were staging a protest outside of the Intercontinental Hotel in New York, Glatter says. It was probably 300 people with signs saying Not my president. Meanwhile, there was a rally at Trump Tower with signs saying Not my president. And people walked into our rally, normal people, going, Whats going on here? What rally is this? And we were shooting Homeland. That was very discombobulating, to say the least.

Mandy Patinkin and Claire Danes in the final season of Homeland.

(Sifeddine Elamine / Showtime)

As Homelands penultimate season began, with near self-parodic bluster, now-President Keane has imprisoned hundreds of members of the intelligence community in retaliation for an attempt on her life. Absent longtime ally Peter Quinn (fan favorite Rupert Friend), who sacrifices himself to save her and Keane at the end of Season 6, Carrie must take the fight to the woman in the Oval Office all by her lonesome. By the seventh seasons brilliant end, with Keanes resignation and our heroine released to Saul after an extended stint in Russian captivity, Homeland returns to its foundational bond and recaptures the taut terms of its finest hours.

It also sets up the final seasons elegant conceit, as Danes describes it. Though Carries bipolar disorder is a running theme throughout the series, coming in and out of focus as her circumstances change, it returns to the forefront after her stint in prison, during which she has been denied her medication. The possibility that she has revealed sensitive information while under such duress, and does not remember it, leads some in the intelligence community to question her allegiance.

Or, as Danes puts it, Carrie becomes Brody. This effect is underscored by the title sequence, which combines sounds and images from the first seven seasons, and the seasons plot, which Gansa says is designed in part to tie up loose ends from Season 4, including the fate of Haissam Haqqani. Very purposefully, in other words, the series closing arc conjures the feeling of vintage Homeland.

The list of TV series to survive long enough, in enough configurations, for such a phrase to be applicable at all is vanishingly short. Certainly, none in the past decade have swung quite so wildly from the ridiculous to the sublime as Homeland. But the series end has a valedictory quality: As perhaps the last of the Golden Age dramas to go off the air, Homeland is an emblem of a form the ongoing, prestige drama that appears to be in decline.

In Homelands case, its not for lack of material; if anything, as we approach 20 years of the war on terror, the series continued relevance has become an objective correlative of the conflicts endlessness. As Patinkin suggests during the course of our conversation, by turns tearful at the significance of the journey and relieved by its conclusion, Homelands ability to evolve in tandem with its troubled times is also what left those involved too drained to continue.

It could go on forever, a show like this, he says. If you can endure it.

More:
'Homeland' on Showtime is TV's most adaptable show - Los Angeles Times

LinkShadow to Showcase Machine Learning Based Threat Analytics Technology at RSA Conference 2020 – PRNewswire

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

ATHENS, Ga., Feb. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LinkShadow,Next-Generation Cybersecurity Analytics, announces its presence at the prestigious RSA Conference 2020 in San Francisco from February 24-28.

LinkShadow offers a wide spectrum of cybersecurity solutions that focuses on how to overcome the critical challenges in this smart cyberattacks era.These products include ThreatScore Quadrant, Identity Intelligence, Asset AutoDiscovery, TrafficScene Visualizer & AttackScape Viewer, CXO Dashboards and Threat Shadow. When combined with state-of-art machine-learning capabilities, LinkShadow delivers supreme solutions which include Behavioral Analytics, Threat Intelligence, Insider Threat Management, Privileged Users Analytics, Network Security Optimization, Application Security Visibility, Risk Scoring and Prioritization, Machine Learning and Statistical Analysis and, finally, Anomaly Detection and Predictive Analytics.

At RSA Conference, LinkShadow expert teams will be sharing valuable insights on how this dynamic platform can empower organizations and help improve their defenses against advanced cyberattacks.

Duncan Hume, Vice President USA, LinkShadow, commented that "Undoubtedly RSA Conference is the perfect platform to showcase this unique technology, and we plan to make the best of this opportunity.While you are there, meet the technical teams for a demo session and learn how LinkShadow's best-in-class threat hunting capabilities powered by intense and extensive machine learning algorithms can help organizations become cyber-resilient."

To schedule a personalized demo or fix a meeting at LinkShadow - Booth No. 5487, North Hall, register now:https://www.linkshadow.com/events/RSA-Conference

About LinkShadow

LinkShadow is a U.S.-registered company with regional offices in the Middle East.It is pioneered by a team of highly skilled solution architects, product specialists and programmers with a vision to formulate a next-generation cybersecurity solution that provides unparalleled detection of even the most sophisticated threats. LinkShadow was built with the vision of enhancing organizations' defenses against advanced cyberattacks, zero-day malware and ransomware, while simultaneously gaining rapid insight into the effectiveness of their existing security investments.For more information, visit http://www.linkshadow.com.

Raji John | Head of Client ServiceseMediaLinkT: +971 4 279 4091E: raji@emedialinkme.net

How Will Machine Learning Serve the Hotel Industry in 2020 and Beyond? – CIOReview

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

Machine learning will help the hotel industry to remain tech-savvy and also help them to save money, improve service, and grow more efficient.

Fremont, CA: Artificial intelligence (AI) implementation grew tremendously last year alone such that any business that does not consider the implications of machine learning (ML) will find itself in multiple binds. It has become mandatory that companies should question themselves how they will utilize machine learning to reap its benefits while staying in business. Similarly, hotels should interrogate themselves about how they will use ML. However, trying to catch-up with this technology is potentially dangerous when companies realize that their competition is outperforming them. When hotels believe that robotic housekeepers and facial recognition kiosks are the effective applications of ML, they can do much more. Here is how ML serves the hotel industry while helping save money, improve service, and grow more efficient.

For successfully running the hotel industry, energy and water are the two most important factors. Will there be a no if there is a technology that controls the use of the two critical factors without affecting the guest's comfort zone. Every dollar saved on energy and water can impact the bottom line of the business in a big way. Hotels can track the actual consumption of energy against predictive models allowing them to manage performance against competitors. Hotel brands can link-in room energy to the PMS so that when the room is empty, the heater or any other electrical appliances, automatically turns off.

ML helps brands hire suitable candidates and also highly qualified candidates who might have been overlooked for not fulfilling traditional expectations. ML algorithms were used to create assessments to test candidates for recruiting against the personas using gamification-based tools. Further, ML maximizes the value of premium inventory and increases guest satisfaction by offering guests personalized upgrades based on their previous stay at a price that the guest is ready to pay at booking and pre-arrival period. Using ML technology, hotel brands can create offers at any point during the guest stay, including the front desk. Thus, the future of sustainability in the hospitality industry relies on ML.

European Central Bank Partners with Digital Innovation Platform Reply to Offer AI and Machine Learning Coding Marathon – Crowdfund Insider

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

The European Central Bank (ECB) has partnered with Reply, a platform focused on digital innovation, in order to offer a 48-hour coding marathon, which will focus on teaching participants how to apply the latest artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms.

The marathon is scheduled to take place during the final days of February 2020 at the ECB in Frankfurt, Germany. The supervisory data hackathon will have over 80 participants from the ECB, Reply and various other organizations.

Participants will be using AI and ML techniques to gain a better understanding and quicker insights into the large amounts of supervisory data gathered by the ECB from various banks and other financial institutions via regular reporting methods for risk analysis purposes.

Program participants will have to turn in projects in the areas of data quality, interlinkages in supervisory reporting and risk indicators, before the event takes place. The best submissions will be worked on for a 48-hour period by multidisciplinary teams.

Last month, the Bank of England (BoE) and UKs financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), announced that they would be running a public/private forum that would cover the relevant technical and public policy issues related to bank adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies and software.

A survey conducted by the BoE last year revealed that ML tools are being used in around two-thirds, or 66%, of UKs financial institutions, with the technology expected to enter a new stage of development and maturity that could lead to more advanced deployments in the future.

Originally posted here:
European Central Bank Partners with Digital Innovation Platform Reply to Offer AI and Machine Learning Coding Marathon - Crowdfund Insider

How AI Is Tracking the Coronavirus Outbreak – WIRED

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

With the coronavirus growing more deadly in China, artificial intelligence researchers are applying machine-learning techniques to social media, web, and other data for subtle signs that the disease may be spreading elsewhere.

The new virus emerged in Wuhan, China, in December, triggering a global health emergency. It remains uncertain how deadly or contagious the virus is, and how widely it might have already spread. Infections and deaths continue to rise. More than 31,000 people have now contracted the disease in China, and 630 people have died, according to figures released by authorities there Friday.

John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Harvard Medical School and an expert on mining social media information for health trends, is part of an international team using machine learning to comb through social media posts, news reports, data from official public health channels, and information supplied by doctors for warning signs the virus is taking hold in countries outside of China.

The program is looking for social media posts that mention specific symptoms, like respiratory problems and fever, from a geographic area where doctors have reported potential cases. Natural language processing is used to parse the text posted on social media, for example, to distinguish between someone discussing the news and someone complaining about how they feel. A company called BlueDot used a similar approachminus the social media sourcesto spot the coronavirus in late December, before Chinese authorities acknowledged the emergency.

We are moving to surveillance efforts in the US, Brownstein says. It is critical to determine where the virus may surface if the authorities are to allocate resources and block its spread effectively. Were trying to understand whats happening in the population at large, he says.

The rate of new infections has slowed slightly in recent days, from 3,900 new cases on Wednesday to 3,700 cases on Thursday to 3,200 cases on Friday, according to the World Health Organization. Yet it isnt clear if the spread is really slowing or if new infections are simply becoming more difficult to track.

So far, other countries have reported far fewer cases of coronavirus. But there is still widespread concern about the virus spreading. The US has imposed a travel ban on China even though experts question the effectiveness and ethics of such a move. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have created a visualization of the viruss progress around the world based on official numbers and confirmed cases.

Health experts did not have access to such quantities of social, web, and mobile data when seeking to track previous outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). But finding signs of the new virus in a vast soup of speculation, rumor, and posts about ordinary cold and flu symptoms is a formidable challenge. The models have to be retrained to think about the terms people will use and the slightly different symptom set, Brownstein says.

Even so, the approach has proven capable of spotting a coronavirus needle in a haystack of big data. Brownstein says colleagues tracking Chinese social media and news sources were alerted to a cluster of reports about a flu-like outbreak on December 30. This was shared with the WHO, but it took time to confirm the seriousness of the situation.

Beyond identifying new cases, Brownstein says the technique could help experts learn how the virus behaves. It may be possible to determine the age, gender, and location of those most at risk more quickly than using official medical sources.

Alessandro Vespignani, a professor at Northeastern University who specializes in modeling contagion in large populations, says it will be particularly challenging to identify new instances of the coronavirus from social media posts, even using the most advanced AI tools, because its characteristics still arent entirely clear. Its something new. We dont have historical data, Vespignani says. There are very few cases in the US, and most of the activity is driven by the media, by peoples curiosity.

Link:
How AI Is Tracking the Coronavirus Outbreak - WIRED

New cybersecurity system protects networks with LIDAR, no not that LiDAR – C4ISRNet

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

When it comes to identifying early cyber threats, its important to have laser-like precision. Mapping out a threat environment can be done with a range of approaches, and a team of researchers from Purdue University created a new system for just such applications. They are calling that approach LIDAR, or lifelong, intelligent, diverse, agile and robust.

This is not to be confused with LiDAR, for Light Detection and Ranging, a kind of remote sensing system that uses laser pulses to measure distances from the sensor. The light-specific LiDAR, sometimes also written LIDAR, is a valuable tool for remote sensing and mapping, and features prominently in the awareness tools of self-driving vehicles.

Purdues LIDAR, instead, is a kind of architecture for network security. It can adapt to threats, thanks in part to its ability to learn three ways. These include supervised machine learning, where an algorithm looks at unusual features in the system and compares them to known attacks. An unsupervised machine learning component looks through the whole system for anything unusual, not just unusual features that resemble attacks. These two machine-learning components are mediated by a rules-based supervisor.

One of the fascinating things about LIDAR is that the rule-based learning component really serves as the brain for the operation, said Aly El Gamal, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in Purdues College of Engineering. That component takes the information from the other two parts and decides the validity of a potential attack and necessary steps to move forward.

By knowing existing attacks, matching to detected threats, and learning from experience, this LIDAR system can potentially offer a long-term solution based on how the machines themselves become more capable over time.

Aiding the security approach, said the researchers, is the use of a novel curiosity-driven honeypot, which can like a carnivorous pitcher plant lure attackers and then trap them where they will do no harm. Once attackers are trapped, it is possible the learning algorithm can incorporate new information about the threat, and adapt to prevent future attacks making it through.

The research team behind this LIDAR approach is looking to patent the technology for commercialization. In the process, they may also want to settle on a less-confusing moniker. Otherwise, we may stumble into a future where users securing a network of LiDAR sensors with LIDAR have to enact an entire Whos on First? routine every time they update their cybersecurity.

Original post:
New cybersecurity system protects networks with LIDAR, no not that LiDAR - C4ISRNet

The FCA and Bank of England step into the AI and machine learning debate – Lexology

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

On 23 January 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England (BofE) announced that they will be establishing the Financial Services Artificial Intelligence Public-Private Forum (AIPPF).

The aim of the AIPPF will be to progress the regulators dialogue with the public and private sectors to better understand the relevant technical and public policy issues related to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It will gather views on potential areas where principles, guidance or good practice examples could support the safe adoption of such technologies, and explore whether ongoing industry input could be useful and what form this could take. The AIPPF will also share information and understand the practical challenges of using AI and ML within the financial services sector, as well as the barriers to deployment and any potential risks or trade-offs.

Participating in the AIPPF will be by invitation only, with the final selection taken at the discretion of both the BofE and the FCA. Firms that are active in the development of AI and the use of ML will be prioritised over public authorities and academics. It will be co-chaired by Sir Dave Ramsden, deputy governor for markets and banking at the BofE, and Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition at the FCA.

This comes at a time when financial services institutions such as banks and fund managers rely heavily on technology to facilitate increased regulatory reporting that is both timely and accurate, and when the stakes can be high for institutions that can face multi-million pound penalties for failing to meet their reporting obligations, despite having invested the time and money in systems to meet their reporting obligations. The regulators themselves are also looking to reduce the onus on their own supervisors as they continue to receive ever-increasing data sets each week from financial services firms, as explored in the BofEs discussion paper called Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector published on 7 January 2020.

The BofEs discussion paper marked the start of its process to work closely with firms to ensure it and the FCA improves data collection, and eases the administrative and financial burden on firms to deliver that data; the announcement of the AIPPF marks the next step in this process.

In a similar way, the European Commission (EC) established its High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence in October 2019, to support the implementation of its AI vision, namely that AI must be trustworthy and human-centric. Notable recommendations made by the group relevant to the banking sector included developing and supporting AI-specific cybersecurity infrastructures, upskilling and reskilling the current workforce, and developing legally compliant and ethical data management and sharing initiatives in Europe. The EC has also plans to set out rules relating to AI over the next five years (as from June 2019).

There is a clear indication that the regulators both in and outside the UK are taking a keener interest in how regulated entities deploy AI and machine learning. Given the direction of regulatory travel planned by the EC, we expect this emerging trend to result in similar regulatory guidance and possible rules in the UK over the coming years.

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The FCA and Bank of England step into the AI and machine learning debate - Lexology

Interview with international model Andreja Pejic: I think standing behind Assange and Manning is where we should all be – World Socialist Web Site

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

Interview with international model Andreja Pejic: I think standing behind Assange and Manning is where we should all be By Sue Phillips and Will Marshall 7 February 2020

World Socialist Web Site writers Sue Phillips and Will Marshall had the opportunity in January to discuss the campaign to free persecuted WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, as well as broader political issues, with internationally-acclaimed model Andreja Pejic.

Pejic was in Melbourne to visit her family and as a celebrity guest at the gala opening of the National Gallery of Victoria Internationals summer exhibition, Crossing Lines.

Wikipedia notes: Before coming out as a transwoman in late 2013, Pejic was known as the first completely androgynous supermodel. Today she is one of the most recognised transgender models in the world. She has appeared on the front cover of international editions ofElle,Marie Claire,Harpers Bazaar,LOfficielandFashion.

In May 2015, Pejic became the first transgender model profiled byVogue. In 2016, Pejic was awarded Best International Female Model by fashion magazineGQ Portugal. The following year she was the first transgender woman to appear on the cover ofGQ. Pejic made her major film debut in the 2018 crime thriller filmThe Girl in the Spiders Web.

Pejic was born in Tuzla, in the Bosnian region of Yugoslavia in August 1991, just prior to the outbreak of ethno-nationalist civil war. Her family was forced to flee as refugees to Serbia. Along with her mother, her older brother and grandmother, she migrated to Australia in the aftermath of the 1999 US-NATO war against Serbia.

Pejic grew up in the working-class suburb of Broadmeadows in Melbourne. After completing her secondary schooling at University High, Pejic was accepted to study medicine at the University of Melbourne. Pejic deferred her university study after she was scouted as a model while working part-time at McDonalds.

Pejic is a socialist-minded artist who is an outspoken and principled advocate for transgender rights. She has spoken out strongly against identity politics, emphasising the domination and centrality of class division in understanding capitalist society.

In December, Pejic attended a Socialist Equality Party (SEP) public meeting in Melbourne in defence of Assange and Manning with her brother Igor, and her mother Jadranka.

WSWS: Thanks very much for giving us your time to discuss the critical issue of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Could you speak about the significance of their exposures of war crimes in the Middle East?

Andreja Pejic: I think what Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning have done is huge for democratic principles and human rights. It is a thing that we are sort of ignoring. Its like this big elephant in the room. We are told about the crimes of different dictatorshipslike Russia, or Iran or Chinabut what were ignoring are the imperialist war crimes, the crimes by Western governments. These things need to be confronted if were going to fight for a better society. It cant be swept under the rug.

WSWS: Do you see any connection between the attempts to silence Assange and Manning and the escalating US war drive against Iran?

AP: Yes, I feel that America is in a political crisis. Obviously, we have already had a huge economic crisis in 2008 and this is paving the road towards the destruction of democracy and towards an authoritarian system. I have always known that Western interventions were sham from a young age. It was nothing new to me, I guess. But slowly people are beginning to wake up that the US military is not spreading democracy in these places. If you look at Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syriawhere are these thriving democracies they were fighting for?

WSWS: Could you explain your own experience as a refugee from the US-NATO war in Yugoslavia and the impact that it had on your political outlook?

AP: I was born six months before the start of the Yugoslav wars. My mum was Serbian and my dad was Croatian. They grew up in a country that had been united for 50 years and it was normal for them to have their marriage. Then the war breaks out and she has to take my brother and me and my grandmother to Serbia and it split my family up.

They thought that it was going to be a two-month war, something that would be resolved very quickly. But it ended up as a five-year civil warthe worst war in Europe since World War IIand we ended up growing up in a refugee camp. I just remember this terribly tense situation as we were growing up, with the national divides and the racism from all sides.

That experience propelled me, especially when we came to Australia, to want to know what happened and to find a better explanation than blaming any particular nationality. So, I researched and that led me to discover you guys [the WSWS and SEP]. It propelled me to learn about history. Why did the Soviet Union fall? Why did the system that [Yugoslav leader Josip Broz] Tito upheld break down? Why did this horrible war happen?

This had a huge impact on me politically. I discovered the imperialist crimes in that whole situation. What the West did when it approved Slovenias secession [from Yugoslavia in 1991] and then, later, what the US did to Serbia with the NATO bombings. It was horrific.

I was wondering why a society which was claiming to be so democratic could do something like that. Why so many so-called progressively-minded people in the West supported that war? I think it was one of the first wars that the liberal intelligentsia got behind. I was searching for a better explanation.

I now have this huge aversion to nationalism. People always ask me in interviews, are you Croatian, are you Serbian, are you Australian? I always answer them that this is where I was born; this is where I spent my childhood; this is where I spent my teenage years; and now I live in America. I dont think national identity is a healthy thing because Ive seen a country destroyed by it. Nationalism was exploited to divide the country and to divide my family.

WSWS: You left the Balkans as a refugee and you have returned? What is your overviewfrom what the Balkans was, to what it is now?

AP: The country still hasnt recovered from the war. The economic level and the cultural level are much lower than it was. The democracy is corrupt and social conditions are terrible. The inequality is huge. The political arena is dominated by criminals.

WSWS: Its been revealed that while Assange was in the Ecuadorian embassy the security firm UC Global was secretly spying on and filming him, and all of that was being live streamed to the CIA.

AP: Everything thats been done to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is appalling. Julian being imprisoned in Belmarsh Prison, in the worst conditions, denied access to his legal representation and the huge smear campaign in the media and politically to destroy his name. Chelsea Manning being hauled in front of a secret court, imprisoned again and fined $1,000 each day. Its appalling.

WSWS: There have been many statements by Nils Melzer and doctors internationally about Assanges health. Hes been living for a decade under conditions of psychological torture. What do you think about this situation? Theyve called for his immediate release, or at the very least, be transferred to a university hospital to receive proper medical care.

AP: These are extraordinary times to be living in. To see the British government and the US governmentwho are supposed to be leaders in the democratic worldto completely break the law and destroy journalists and whistleblowers for their own gains is incredibly discouraging.

WSWS: Could you speak about the Australian government which has refused to lift a finger to defend Assange to defend an Australian citizen, going right back to the Gillard Labor government?

AP: I was recently asked to do an interview for Harpers Bazaar. They wanted to do an article about womens voices and they wanted to include Julia Gillard. And I said No because I dont want to be in the same article as her because of the situation that is happening and her role in it. She could have stepped in to protect Assange.

The Australian government has failed to protect one of its citizens. It has protected journalists before, but it has failed to do that in Assanges case. Its just extraordinary. The level of conspiracy amounts to an internationally organised witch-hunt.

I think Labor should be putting up a real opposition to the governments failure to protect Australias greatest anti-war journalist from political persecution. It should admit its past failure and work to expose this issue to the biggest audience, so that a movement can be built to stop the extradition.

WSWS: In addition to your successful modelling career, youve been known for speaking out and promoting transgender rights. In social media and public statements, youve spoken strongly against identity politics, emphasising the centrality of class. Can you explain that further?

AP: Ive been open about my experience, about my medical issues and personal things, because I felt that I had a social responsibility and opportunity to open peoples minds and hearts to something that is very different. But at the same time, there isnt an understanding that minorities are being manipulated by the Democratic Party and by such forces to paint a better picture of them. I think that there isnt an understanding of class, and how minorities are also divided into classes like the rest of the population.

At the end of the day, a transgender worker, or an African-American worker, or any minority worker, has more in common with all other workers than they do with this upper-middle-class layer. In the framework of identity politics, all women are thought to be in the same situation, all trans people or all LGBTI people are thought to be in the same situation, but theyre not. They are divided into classes just as much.

WSWS: Could you speak about how identity politics and the allegations against Assange vis--vis the Swedish case were used?

AP: I remember posting about Assange on Instagram and getting criticised by feminists and by Hillary Clinton supporters. How can you, they said, who has said so many progressive things, and stood for something, protect someone they feel is a rapist, or caused Donald Trump to be elected, and ruined Hilary Clintons campaign?

At the end of the day, Assange and Manning have sacrificed their lives for our democratic rights and to expose for all peoplefrom every race and every gender and sexualitythe truth about what our governments are doing. Hilary Clinton is the reason that Trump got elected. If she has committed crimes, she needs to answer for them, not the other way around.

Where theres a leader of an African nation, or an Eastern European nation, and they commit a war of aggression, we expect them to go before an international tribunal and face war crimes charges. But when it comes to Western politicians, we expect them to go golfing, or do speeches, and cash in. This is completely unfair.

Assange wasnt even charged. These were allegations and, from what Ive read about the case, there are so many holes and theres been a huge cover-up. He was OK going to Sweden and facing these allegations if Sweden was not going to extradite him to the US. Thats a fact that is left out. And now, of course, theyve dropped the allegations because there wasnt a basis to them.

WSWS: In December, it was Chelsea Mannings 32nd birthday. Shes now been in jail in Virginia for nine months. She has taken a principled stand and refused to appear before the grand jury in the US. She has said that no matter what happens to her, she will not break her principles. How do you see Mannings role?

AP: Chelsea Manning is one of the most inspirational people from the same community as me. What shes done is incredibly inspiring and incredibly brave. To uphold her principles, to not go the easy way, to endure torturethe UN charged the US government, or accused the US government, of torturing her. My heart goes out to her. I wish there was more support for her within the LGBTI community.

WSWS: There has been a certain abandonment of Chelsea Manning by the gay and transgender organisations that have links to the Democratic Party.

AP: This is incredibly disheartening. I remember there was a gay pride parade in New York, and I was hoping that there would be more statements in support of her. I know that Manning has done things with American Vogue. She has done things with a lot of publications who are in fashion which, when she was pardoned by Obama, celebrated her.

We need to keep celebrating her, and we need to support her. Its sad to see how little thinking, how little consciousness, there is in this whole scenario. Were not supposed to just do what the Democratic Party tells us. We can be independent and think for ourselves.

I didnt want to support the Hillary Clinton campaign. They were trying to get people throughout the celebrity world and in womens rights to support her. I stayed away from that. While I come from a minority in many different waysnot just a gender minorityI cant let that be bigger than the big picture. Considering everything Ive been through in my life, I couldnt get behind a pro-war candidate like Hillary Clinton.

WSWS: What do you think of Bernie Sanders?

AP: I have read a lot about him on the WSWS. Its really interesting that so many young people voted for him, that something they think looks like socialism has become so popular in the West, in the centre of the biggest capitalist country in the world. At the same time, Sanders believes that the Democratic Party can be reformed or that it can swing to the left somehow. Its very hard to imagine that or that we can implement the Scandinavian model in America. If you look at what is happening in Europe, its going the other way. They are dismantling the welfare system.

WSWS: Were you living in the US when Obama was elected?

AP: Yes, I was. With Obama, I think there was this massively successful PR campaign of hope and change. Even people from the Republicans, from the conservative side, got on board, and the whole of the left did. Then he proved to be a huge disappointmentSyria, Yemen and Libya and Guantnamo Bay stayed open. The way the financial crisis was handled was terrible, with Obama giving an endless supply of cash to the banks.

A lot of what Trump is doing was made possible by the actions of the Obama administration. I went to a protest about refugees in Mexico. A lot of those centres were built under Obama. He also deported more immigrants than any other president in the history of the United States. It was a big fat PR campaign.

WSWS: Do you see that there is any relationship between the attacks on Assange and the drive to censor the internet and social media?

AP: Yes, the internet has played a revolutionary role in that it has connected people across the world and exposed them to alternative information. People are starting to question the political and economic system more and more. The governments and ruling elites want to clamp down on that, and stop that from spreading, like all these protests around the world. In France, in Chile, people have had enough.

The internet is there for everyone to share their voices, for information to flow freely, and not to be monopolised by the biggest players or controlled by the biggest governments. Its probably the greatest question of our time, and especially with young people. I grew up with the internet, and it taught me everything I wanted to know. I think there is a huge power in information and its this power that they want to take away from us.

WSWS: Pamela Anderson, Roger Waters, John Pilger, M.I.A. have spoken out in defence of Julian Assange. Could you speak about the importance of their stand and whether others in the artistic community should speak out?

AP: I saw Pamela on the television show the View and she was really good. Its beautiful to see that. I hope that more people do it. I hope that more well-known people with an even bigger audience come to his defence because there were people supporting him. Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga went to visit Julian Assange and I remember being very much inspired by that. I think we need to bring that back. He cant be extradited to the United States because we all know what would happen in that scenario. It would be a tragic loss for the human race.

WSWS: What do you think will happen if Assange gets extradited?

AP: Well, theyve charged him under the Espionage Act. He is facing 175 years in prison. It could even be capital punishment. Already his health has deteriorated and he is in such a horrific state. Under no circumstances should he be extradited.

WSWS: Is there pressure within the fashion industry against speaking out in defence of Assange and Manning?

AP: Theres a lot of people in my world who just do not understand, who are well meaning and want to speak out but dont have that political consciousness. Its sad to see people who have an understanding of it but have held their tongues. Im hoping that this changes. That would make things easier for the younger generation. It would make things easier for this fight. I think that these protests and opposition things that are happening sort of propel things in a better direction.

WSWS: How has the World Socialist Web Site impacted on your political outlook?

AP: I discovered the SEP when I went to University High. I was researching socialism at a very young age, because I wanted to know about the Balkans, and the sympathy I had for there. My mum spoke ofand still does, like a lot of people from that areaspeak with nostalgia for that period of their lives in Yugoslavia. I wanted to know what the system was in Yugoslavia, what socialism really meant, what the Soviet Union was and what the history was. And I think I found a SEP flier about your election campaign in Broadmeadows and attended a meeting.

This led me to the website. And I just devoured a lot of the historical things. I think its really interesting to find out what happened in China, what happened in Russia, in Yugoslavia, and the role of Stalinism in setting back socialism.

WSWS: We stress that the fight for the freedom of Assange and Manning is bound up with the mobilisation of the working class. Its not the Labor Party, or parties such as the Greens, that are going to do this.

AP: I think the workers have all the powerthey always have, they still doand people need to understand that. When I talk about these subjects, a lot of people dont really understand what a revolution looks like or what class struggle is. For a long time, I struggled with that idea too and to understand how thats done and how workers are mobilised. The steps toward that are a long process but its incredibly important for anyone progressive to be oriented towards the working class. Theres no way around that, from what Ive learned.

WSWS: Why should socialist-minded artists like you fight for Assange and Mannings defence and freedom?

AP: I would say that its incredibly important to fight for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange to further democracy and to further the cause for a better world. You cant fight for a better world and ignore what theyve accomplished, what theyve done.

We cannot ignore democratic principles and socialist principles and achieve any kind of progress. We have to build on top of them. I think what you and the WSWS have done to defend Assange and Manning is incredibly heroic and incredibly important for the world. This period will go down in history as a huge stain on the governments of the US, and Britain and Australia, in 20 or 30 years down the line.

We live in a very complex world. Theres a lot of confusion and its hard to know where to stand in this huge crisis that is happening, but I think standing behind Assange and Manning is where we should all be.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Interview with international model Andreja Pejic: I think standing behind Assange and Manning is where we should all be - World Socialist Web Site

Duh, Jared! So who built the PA as a ‘police state’? – CounterPunch

Posted on February 8, 2020 by admin

Nazareth.

Maybe something good will come out of the Trump plan, after all. By pushing the Middle East peace process to its logical conclusion, Donald Trump has made crystal clear something that was supposed to have been obscured: that no US administration has ever really seen peace as the objective of its peacemaking.

The current White House is no exception it has just been far more incompetent at concealing its joint strategy with the Israelis. But that is what happens when a glorified used-car salesman, Donald Trump, and his sidekick son-in-law, the schoolboy-cum-businessman Jared Kushner, try selling us the deal of the century. Neither, it seems, has the political or diplomatic guile normally associated with those who rise to high office in Washington.

During aninterviewwith CNNs Fareed Zakaria this week, Kushner dismally failed to cloak the fact that his peace plan was designed with one goal only: to screw the Palestinians over.

The real aim is so transparent that even Zakaria couldnt stop himself from pointing it out. In CNNs words, he noted that no Arab country currently satisfies the requirements Palestinians are being expected to meet in the next four years including ensuring freedom of press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, and an independent judiciary.

Trumps senior adviser suddenly found himself confronted with the kind of deadly, unassailable logic usually overlooked in CNN coverage. Zakaria observed:

Isnt this just a way of telling the Palestinians youre never actually going to get a state because if no Arab countries today [are] in a position that you are demanding of the Palestinians before they can be made a state, effectively, its a killer amendment?

Indeed it is.

In fact, the Peace to Prosperity document unveiled last week by the White House is no more than a list of impossible preconditions the Palestinians must meet to be allowed to sit down with the Israelis at the negotiating table. If they dont do so within four years, and quickly reach a deal, the very last slivers of their historic homeland the parts not already seized by Israel can be grabbed too, with US blessing.

Preposterous conditions

Admittedly, all Middle East peace plans in living memory have foisted these kinds of prejudicial conditions on the Palestinians. But this time many of the preconditions are so patently preposterous contradictory even that the usually pliable corporate press corps are embarrassed to be seen ignoring the glaring inconsistencies.

The CNN exchange was so revealing in part because Kushner was triggered by Zakarias observation that the Palestinians had to become a model democracy a kind of idealised Switzerland, while still under belligerent Israeli occupation before they could be considered responsible enough for statehood.

How was that plausible, Zakaria hinted, when Saudi Arabia, despite its appalling human rights abuses, nonetheless remains a close strategic US ally, and Saudi leaders continue to be intimates of the Trump business empire? No one in Washingtonis seriously contemplating removing US recognition of Saudi Arabia because it is a head-chopping, women-hating, journalist-killing religious fundamentalist state.

But Zakaria could have made an even more telling point was he not answerable to CNN executives. There are also hardly any western states that would pass the democratic, human rights-respecting threshold set by the Trump plan for the Palestinians. Nor, of course, would Israel.

Think of Britainsfloutinglast year of a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the Chagos Islanders must be allowed to return home decades after the UK expelled them so the US could build a military base on their land. Or the Windrush scandal, when it was revealed that a UK government hostile environment policy was used to illegally deport British citizens to the Caribbean because of the colour of their skin.

Or what about the US evading due process by holding prisoners offshore at Guantanamo? Or its use oftortureagainst Iraqi prisoners, or its reliance onextraordinary rendition, or itsextrajudicial assassinationsusing drones overseas, including against its own citizens?

Or for that matter, its jailing and extortionatefiningof whistleblower Chelsea Manning, despite the Obama administration granting her clemency. US officials want to force her to testify against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for his role in publishing leaks of US war crimes committed in Iraq, including the shockingCollateral Murdervideo.

And while were talking about Assange and about Iraq

Would the records of either the US or UK stand up to scrutiny if they were subjected to the same standards now required of the Palestinian leadership.

Impertinent questions

But lets fast forward to the heart of the matter. Angered by Zakarias impertinence at mildly questioning the logic of the Trump plan, Kushner let rip.

He called the Palestinian Authority a police state and one that is not exactly a thriving democracy. It would be impossible, he added, for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians until the Palestinians, not Israels occupying army, changed its ways. It was time for the Palestinians to prioritise human rights and democracy, while at the same time submitting completely to Israels belligerent, half-century occupation that violates their rights and undermines any claims Israel might have to being a democracy.

Kushner said:

If they [the Palestinians] dont think that they can uphold these standards, then I dont think we can get Israel to take the risk to recognize them as a state, to allow them to take control of themselves, because the only thing more dangerous than what we have now is a failed state.

Lets take a moment to unpack that short statement to examine its many conceptual confusions.

First, theres the very obvious point that police states and dictatorships are not failed states. Not by a long shot. In fact, police states and dictatorships are usually the very opposite of failed states. Iraq was an extremely able state under Saddam Hussein, in terms both of its ability to provide welfare and educational services and of its ruthless, brutal efficiency in crushing dissent.

Iraq only became a failed state when the US illegally invaded and executed Saddam, leaving a local leadership vacuum that sucked in an array of competing actors who quickly made Iraq ungovernable.

Oppressive by design

Second, as should hardly need pointing out, the PA cant be a police state when it isnt even a state. After all, thats where the Palestinians are trying to get to, and Israel and the US are blocking the way. It is obviously something else. What that something else is brings us to the third point.

Kushner is right that the PA is increasingly authoritarian and uses its security forces in oppressive ways because thats exactly what it was set up to do by Israel and the US.

Palestinians had assumed that the Oslo accords of the mid-1990s would lead to the creation of a sovereign state at the completion of that five-year peace process. But that never happened. Denied statehood ever since, the PA now amounts to nothing more than a security contractor for the Israelis. Its unspoken job is to make the Palestinian people submit to their permanent occupation by Israel.

The self-defeating deal contained in Oslos land for peace formula was this: the PA would build Israeli trust by crushing all resistance to the occupation, and in return Israel would agree to hand over more territory and security powers to the PA.

Bound by its legal obligations, the PA had two possible paths ahead of it: either it would become a state under Israeli licence, or it would serve as a Vichy-like regime suppressing Palestinian aspirations for national liberation. Once the US and Israel made clear they would deny the Palestinians statehood at every turn, the PAs fate was sealed.

Put another way, the point of Oslo from the point of view of the US and Israel was to make the PA an efficient, permanent police state-in-waiting, and one that lacked the tools to threaten Israel.

And thats exactly what was engineered. Israel refused to let the Palestinians have a proper army in case, bidding to gain statehood, that army turned its firepower on Israel. Instead a US army general, Keith Dayton, was appointed to oversee thetrainingof the Palestinian police forces to help the PA better repress internal dissent those Palestinians who might try to exercise their right in international law to resist Israels belligerent occupation.

Presumably, it is a sign of that US programmes success that Kushner can now describe the PA as a police state.

Freudian slip

In his CNN interview, Kushner inadvertently highlighted the Catch-22 created for the Palestinians. The Trump peace process penalises the Palestinian leadership for their very success in achieving the targets laid out for them in the Oslo peace process.

Resist Israels efforts to deprive the Palestinians of statehood and the PA is classified as aterrorist entityand denied statehood. Submit to Israels dictates and oppress the Palestinian people to prevent them demanding statehood and the PA is classified as apolice stateand denied statehood. Either way, statehood is unattainable. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Kushners use of the term failed state is revealing too, in a Freudian slip kind of way. Israel doesnt just want to steal some Palestinian land before it creates a small, impotent Palestinian state. Ultimately, what Israel envisions for the Palestinians is no statehood at all, not even of the compromised, collaborationist kind currently embodied by the PA.

An unabashed partisan

Kushner, however, has done us a favour inadvertently. He has given away the nature of the US bait-and-switch game towards the Palestinians. Unlike Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk and Aaron David Miller previous American Jewish diplomats overseeing US peace efforts Kushner is notpretending to be an honest broker. He is transparently, unabashedly partisan.

In an earlier CNN interview, one last week with Christiane Amanpour, Kushner showed just how personal is his antipathy towards the Palestinians and their efforts to achieve even the most minimal kind of statehood in a tiny fraction of their historic homeland.

He sounded more like a jilted lover, or an irate spouse forced into couples therapy, than a diplomat in charge of a complex and incendiary peace process. He struggled to contain his bitterness as he extemporised a well-worn but demonstrably false Israeli talking-point that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

He told Amanpour: Theyre going to screw up another opportunity, like theyve screwed up every other opportunity that theyve ever had in their existence.

The reality is that Kushner, like the real author of the Trump plan, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would prefer that the Palestinians had never existed. He would rather this endless peace charade could be discarded, freeing him to get on with enriching himself with his Saudi pals.

And if the Trump plan can be made to work, he and Netanyahu might finally get their way.

Continued here:
Duh, Jared! So who built the PA as a 'police state'? - CounterPunch

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