SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA MEETS WITH AFGHAN OFFICIALS

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, right, escorts Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, center, and Afghan Interior Minister Gen. Bismullah Muhammadi Khan to a meeting at the Pentagon, April 10, 2012. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo  


Panetta Meets Afghan Defense, Interior Ministers at Pentagon
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 - The goal of a sovereign, secure Afghanistan is in sight, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said here today at the beginning of the Afghanistan Security Consultation Forum.


Wardak and Afghan Interior Minister Bishmullah Muhammadi Khan held a two-hour meeting in Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta's Pentagon office. They discussed the status of Afghan forces, plans for training those forces and issues that will be discussed at the NATO summit in Chicago next month.


Panetta congratulated both Afghan leaders for the progress the military and police are making. "I have often stated that I believe 2011 was a turning point, that we suddenly were able to see that the Afghan army and police developed the capabilities to provide security and have developed capabilities to implement the kind of operations that are necessary to providing security," he said.


Strong Afghan military and police forces are needed to make the transition to local security lead, he said.


The secretary also spoke about the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Afghanistan on special operations signed April 8. "The fact that we were able to achieve an agreement, I think, was a very important step forward to ensure that we will make the transition to Afghan operations, but we will do it in a responsible and effective way," Panetta said. "I thank both of you for the leadership that you've provided in being able to achieve those very important agreements."


The forum looked at the future of the Afghan national security forces, the levels that they will surge to and the levels the nation will need for the long run, Panetta said.
"I look forward to discussing our strategic partnership and our ability to arrive at a strategic partnership agreement, which will again be another important step forward in our relationship, and also the regional security challenges that we will have to continue to confront in order to ultimately have a sovereign Afghanistan that can in fact be secure and govern itself," he said.


Wardak thanked the United States for its "sterling contribution" to Afghanistan. "And we are not an ungrateful nation," he said. "We fully recognize your generosity. We acknowledge and honor your sacrifices. We pay tribute to all those brave souls that have paid the ultimate price for the mission in Afghanistan, and we pray for the families of the fallen and wounded."


Afghanistan is at a critical juncture, Wardak said. "But after the years of struggle, tomorrow's goal is in sight," he said. "The costs have been high and the stakes even higher, but the good news is that the hope has been replaced by the real progress, though it has been dearly bought."


Continued U.S. support and cooperation will remain vital for the Afghan forces to transition to the security lead in the years ahead, he said.


"No one should have any doubt on our firm determination to succeed," the defense minister said. "It's a question of our national survival. And we do not wish to be a burden on the U.S. or the rest of the international community more than it is required."
"We assure you that we will spare no effort and sacrifices to ensure the inevitability of our victory in this joint endeavor," Wardak said.


The interior minister also expressed his gratitude for "all of the sacrifices, lost lives and treasures of this country that have been sacrificed for our mutual goals for the survival of our nation in Afghanistan."


In the past decade, coalition and Afghan forces have had many successes and many accomplishments, Muhammadi said through a translator. "We have seen many victories in southern Afghanistan, in eastern Afghanistan, in all of Afghanistan," he said, adding that the visit comes during "a time of destiny" as Afghanistan goes through a transitional process.


By this time next year, the transition process shifting responsibility from the coalition to Afghan security forces will be well under way, Muhammadi said. "I am certain that these face-to-face meetings that we have in this framework of the security consultation forum will pave the way for a successful conference in Chicago," he said.

ONE YEAR AFTER NIGERIAN ELECTIONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Nigeria, One Year After Elections
Remarks Johnnie Carson
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs As Prepared
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Washington, DC
April 9, 2012
A year ago today, Nigerians began casting ballots in the first of what would be four days of voting for legislators, governors, and a president. Tensions were high. Voting that had been scheduled one week earlier was abruptly canceled just hours before polls were to open. We did not know for certain whether months of careful election preparations would result in a process Nigerians considered fair and credible or a rerun of the deeply flawed 2007 presidential elections. Skeptics were everywhere; and many said good elections could not be held.

Nigerians had a different idea. They waited in line for hours. They stuck around after the polls closed to ensure that every ballot was counted. They monitored polling places and compilation centers by the thousands, and they sent text messages reporting any irregularities they observed.

The result was clear. Nigeria had conducted its most successful and credible elections since its return to multiparty democracy in 1999. Despite obvious imperfections, these elections have given the country a solid foundation for strengthening its democratic institutions in the years ahead.

As a witness to that historic occasion, I can vouch for the enthusiasm that Nigerians demonstrated towards these elections and their democratic rights. Civil society groups across the country were actively engaged in the process, and on election day, diverse groups, including the Federation of Muslim Women, the Nigerian Bar Association, and the Transition Monitoring Group, joined together in a massive election monitoring effort called Project Swift Count.

There was also a strong commitment on the part of the government to improve the electoral process. Months before the election, a new and highly regarded Independent National Electoral Commission chairman was named, and the Nigerian Government provided adequate funding to pay for the election process. The new INEC Chair – Professor Attahiru Jega – made a good faith effort to register as many voters as possible and to organize the elections in the shortest time frame.
The April 2011 elections were clearly another step forward in Nigeria’s continuing democratization process, but more remains to be done to improve Nigeria’s electoral procedures and more importantly to strengthen the country’s democratic institutions and governance.

We all need to see a strong, vibrant, and growing Nigeria -- because what happens in Nigeria affects us all – the United States, Africa, and the global community. We cannot run away from the facts. Nigeria is probably the most strategically important country in sub-Saharan Africa. At about 160 million people, Nigeria is home to over twenty percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population. It is the largest oil producing state in Africa, it is the fifth largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, and the tenth largest global producer. It is home to the sixth largest Muslim population in the world, and it’s by far the largest country in the world with approximately equal numbers of Christians and Muslims. In the United Nations, Nigeria is the fifth largest peacekeeping contributing country in the world. And as the most influential and militarily powerful member of the Economic Community of West African States, Nigeria has played a key role in helping to resolve every major political and security dispute in West Africa from the Liberian and Sierra Leonian crises in the 1990s to the recent political problems in Guinea, Niger, and the Cote d’Ivoire, and I might add to that, Mali. Nigeria is a dominant economic and financial force across West Africa, and if Lagos State were an independent country its population would make it the eighteenth largest country in Africa and its economy would be well within the top twenty on the continent.

Nigeria is important and a lot depends on the Nigeria’s success. That’s why Secretary Clinton inaugurated the U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission in 2010, providing the two countries with a high-level vehicle to work together on the most criticial issues we face. We have supported Nigeria’s political and economic reforms and we have tried to be a useful partner as it addresses its social, economic, and security challenges. We have provided technical assistance to support reform in the power sector. We have taken a large energy trade mission to the country, and encouraged the swift passage of a strong petroleum industry bill that brings more transparency to the sector. We have recognized the importance of Nigeria’s agriculture sector and supported Nigeria’s comprehensive agriculture development plans. And in the health sector, we have committed over $500 million a year to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, demonstrating how critical we consider Nigeria in the worldwide fight against HIV and AIDS. President Obama and Secretary Clinton both recognize the importance of this relationship and both have met with and engaged with President Jonathan on a number of occasions over the past three years. Later this week, Nigeria’s vice president will be in Washington and he is expected to meet Vice President Biden in the White House and with senior officials in the State Department.

Nigeria’s success is important to us; but we recognize that that success cannot be achieved unless Nigeria overcomes the challenges that have frustrated its progress. Decades of poor governance have seriously degraded the country’s health, education, and transportation infrastructure. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue, Nigeria has virtually no functioning rail system and only half of its population has access to electricity. The 80 million Nigerians who have electricity share intermittent access to the amount of power equivalent to what we have in the Washington, DC metro area. Living standards for most Nigerians are the same today as they were in 1970, and nearly 100 million Nigerians live on less than one dollar a day.

Nigerians are hungry for progress and an improvement in their lives, but northern Nigerians feel this need most acutely. Life in Nigeria for many is tough, but across the North, life is grim. A UN study shows that poverty in the 12 most northern states is nearly twice that of the rest of the country. The health indicators reflect this. Children in the far north are almost four times as likely to be malnourished. Child mortality is over 200 deaths per 1000 live births, leading to lower life expectancy. Educational standards are just as bad. Literacy in the far north is 35 percent as opposed to 77 percent in the rest of the country. Seventy-seven percent of women in the far north have no formal education, compared to only 17 percent in the rest of the country. In northern Nigeria, primary school attendance is only 41 percent, while youth unemployment is extremely high. All of this contributes to joblessness and a deepening cycle of poverty.

The statistics are disturbing, but they are not the whole story. Poverty in northern Nigeria is increasing. Despite a decade in which the Nigerian economy expanded at a spectacular seven percent per year, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics estimates that extreme poverty is 10 percent higher than in 2004. It’s even worse in the North. Income inequality is growing rapidly. These trends are worrying for economic, political, and security reasons.

While ninety-one percent of Nigerians across the country considered the April 2011 elections to be fair and transparent, most people in the far north backed opposition candidates that did not win. The post-election violence that occurred in several northern cities reflected strong dissatisfaction with elites who protestors thought controlled the election process. Public opinion polls and news reports suggest that there is a strong sentiment throughout the country, but especially in the North, that government is not on the side of the people; and that their poverty is a result of government neglect, corruption, and abuse. This is the type of popular narrative that is ripe for an insurgent group to hijack for its own purposes.

Which brings me to Boko Haram.
As you all know, over the last year Boko Haram has created widespread insecurity across northern Nigeria, increased tensions between various ethnic communities, interrupted development activities, frightened off investors, and generated concerns among Nigeria’s northern neighbors. They have been responsible for near daily attacks in Borno and Yobe states. And they were behind the January 20 attack in Kano that killed nearly 200 people and three major attacks in Abuja, including the bombing of the UN headquarters last August. Boko Haram’s attacks on churches and mosques are particularly disturbing because they are intended to inflame religious tensions and upset the nation’s social cohesion.

Although Boko Haram is reviled throughout Nigeria, and offers no practical solutions to northern problems, a growing minority of certain northern ethnic groups regard them favorably. Boko Haram capitalizes on popular frustrations with leaders, poor government service delivery, and the dismal living conditions of many northerners. Boko Haram seeks to humiliate and undermine the government and to exploit religious differences in order to create chaos and to make Nigeria ungovernable.

Boko Haram has grown stronger and increasingly more sophisticated over the past three years, and eliminating the Boko Haram problem will require a broad-based strategy that employs the establishment of a comprehensive plan rather than the imposition of more martial law. While more sophisticated and targeted security efforts are necessary to contain Boko Haram’s acts of violence and to capture and prosecute its leaders, the government must also win over the population by addressing the social and economic problems that have created the environment in which Boko Haram can thrive. The government must improve its tactics, avoid excessive violence and human rights abuses, make better use of its police and intelligence services, de-emphasize the role of the military, and use its courts to prosecute those who are found to be responsible for Boko Haram’s kidnappings, killings, and terrorist attacks.

Nigerian officials should focus on the political environment that makes Boko Haram so dangerous. By demonstrating the benefits a pluralistic society has to offer, the government will deny Boko Haram and other extremists the ability to exploit ethnic and religious differences. The government should redouble their efforts to resolve ongoing disputes in Jos and other high violence flashpoints. By becoming more responsive to the people, the government can put distance between itself and the accusations that it is blind to the needs of everyday Nigerians.

Numerous northern civil society organizations have come out against Boko Haram – at great personal risk – that could multiply serious government efforts to address longstanding northern grievances. I want to stress that religion is not driving extremist violence in either Jos or Northern Nigeria. While some seek to inflame Muslim-Christian tensions, Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversity is a source of strength, not weakness, and there are many examples of communities working across religious lines to protect one another.

Containing and eliminating Boko Haram today will be much more difficult than it was four years ago, when it was under the leadership of it now deceased leader, Muhammed Yusof, who was killed in police custody. Today, Boko Haram is not a monolithic, homogenous organization controlled by a single charismatic figure. Boko Haram is several organizations, a larger organization focused primarily on discrediting the Nigerian Government, and a smaller more dangerous group, increasingly sophisticated and increasing lethal. This group has developed links with AQIM and has a broader, anti-Western jihadist agenda. This group is probably responsible for the kidnapping of westerners and for the attacks on the UN building in Abuja. Complicating the picture further is the tendency of some officials to blame Boko Haram for bank robberies and local vendettas that are carried out by common criminals and political thugs.
There are some who say that Boko Haram is comprised mostly of non-Nigerian foreigners, and that the group is being funded by a handful of resentful politicians nursing their wounds from the last election. This would be unfortunate if true, but I have not seen any evidence to support either of these theories.

To fix the Boko Haram problem, the government will have to develop a new social compact with its northern citizens. It will have to develop an economic recovery strategy that complements its security strategy. It will have to draw on the support of northern governors traditional Hausa and Fulani leaders and local officials and organizations. The Nigerian Government should consider creating a Ministry of Northern Affairs or a Northern development commission similar to what it did in response to the crises in the Niger Delta.

Northern populations are currently trapped between violent extremists on one hand and heavy-handed government responses on the other. They need to know that their president is going to extraordinary lengths to fix their problems.

Achieving this will not be easy. Although the problems are not the same, it has taken the central government in Abuja nearly ten years to bring the problems in the Niger Delta under some semblance of control. Resolving the problems in northern Nigeria will require the government to act more swiftly and to make a strategic course correction. It will need to adopt a comprehensive strategy and remain disciplined and committed in its implementation, especially at the state and local level where accountability is low and corruption high.

Despite the challenges that Nigeria faces with Boko Haram and other issues, Nigeria is simply too important to be defined by its problems. Nigeria must be defined by its promise and its enormous potential, as well as the resourcefulness of its people. Although some political observers have accused the government of getting off to a shaky start after the elections, that is not a judgment shared by all – especially when you look at key players in the President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet. By all accounts, President Jonathan has put together one of the strongest and most competent economic teams ever assembled in Nigeria. Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former vice president of the World Bank, has pushed a strong reformist agenda, pushing for an end to costly government subsidies, deregulation of the electrical supply and distribution, the sale of the country’s oil refineries and the rapid improvement of the country’s infrastructure. She has been supported in her efforts by Central Bank President Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Agricultural Minster Alhaji Bukar Tijani, Trade and Investment Minister Olusegun Agang, and the Minister of Power Professor Bart Nnaji -- all of whom have put a high premium on promoting sustained economic development, job creation, greater agricultural productivity, and more foreign investment. Given time and political support from the top, this team has the ability to shape and lead Nigeria’s long term economic transformation.

The Nigerian Government has also taken a positive step in trying to address its long standing problem of corruption. Through two strategic appointments, the government has signaled that is once again going to try to get a handle on high-level corruption. For four years, we scaled back our technical assistance programs to Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) because we did not believe the previous leadership was committed to reform. In November, President Jonathan appointed a new chairman to run the country’s EFCC – the country’s main anti-corruption agency. The appointment of Ibrahim Lamode to lead the EFCC gives us confidence that the high-level corruption that has hobbled the delivery of government services will be seriously addressed. President Jonathan’s appointment of Nuhu Ribadu to oversee a commission to monitor and audit the government’s vast oil and gas revenues is also a very promising sign. Before he was fired several years ago, Ribado earned a well-deserved reputation as Nigeria’s most zealous prosecutor of high level corrupt officials. His return, like that of Ngozi and other economic reformers, should be taken as an indication of the promise and potential of getting it right. We hope these high performers will encourage others, like the Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, to accelerate key reforms, including the long awaited Petroleum Industry Bill.

There is also a bright side to be found in a number of statehouses across Nigeria, where governors are responsible for delivering most public services. A handful of governors embraced the challenges of their jobs and have made a real difference. The governors in Lagos, Edo, and Kano have demonstrated what strong, honest, and responsible leadership at the state level can accomplish.

We continue to use the U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission as our primary vehicle for exchanging ideas and promoting engagement with Nigeria.

We want to elevate and expand our dialogue and are ready to work with Nigerian authorities at the national and state level and to expand our programs in states with high performing executives, particularly in northern Nigeria where the need is greatest. We are committed to helping Nigeria develop a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy and to improving collaboration among Nigeria’s intelligence services. We want to support the Nigerian Government’s efforts, especially in the areas of agriculture, electrical power generation and transmission, and anti-corruption. We sent a high-level energy trade mission to Abuja and Lagos in February to attract U.S. private investment in the energy field, and we would like to do something similar to highlight the opportunities that exist in agriculture and infrastructure – where we think we have something real to offer. The agricultural investment forum sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa and the Nigerian Embassy starting tomorrow similarly aims to direct U.S. resources towards Nigerian development.

I am bullish on Nigeria. I have been ever since I served there as a young Foreign Service officer. There is no doubt that Nigeria’s challenges are serious, but we should not underestimate the skill and ability of the Nigerian people and leaders to address them. I believe the forces that are holding Nigeria together are stronger today than the forces that are pulling Nigeria apart. Nigeria remains the giant in Africa, and I remain optimist about its long term future. By working with Nigeria, we can contribute to the country’s economic growth and political unity – two objectives that are important to the United States, Africa, and the global community. A strong, vibrant, politically stable, and economically prosperous Nigeria is in everyone’s interest. I hope you agree. Thank you.

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER SPEAKS AT SHERMAN ACT AWARD CEREMONY

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Sherman Act Award Ceremony Washington, D.C. ~ Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Thank you, Sharis [Pozen].   I appreciate your kind words – and your outstanding leadership as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division.   Every day, your work strengthens the protections, and the great progress, that we’ve gathered to celebrate – and, especially during this period of transition, I am deeply grateful for your stewardship, your commitment to fair and aggressive antitrust enforcement, and the many contributions that you and your team continue to make.

It’s an honor to be with you all, and a pleasure to join Sharis in welcoming so many Division leaders – past and present – distinguished guests, and great champions of sound economic policy and strong consumer protection.   I would particularly like to thank the U.S. Marine Band, the Joint Armed Forces Color Guard, and Shawnee Ball for opening today’s ceremony.   And I’d like to recognize Judge [Michael] Boudin– along with Doug Melamed and Tim Muris – for their participation this afternoon.   Thank you for taking the time to be join our celebration.

Finally, I’d like to extend a special welcome to today’s guest of honor – one of our nation’s leading experts in the field of antitrust law and one of the most effective advocates ever to stand on the side of American consumers – Jim Rill.   Jim, it’s a pleasure to have you – and so many of your family members – back at the Department.

Those of you who’ve had the privilege – and great benefit – of working with Jim know that he is a fearless and tireless advocate for fairness and justice.   For decades, he has worked to protect the American people from anticompetitive conduct – and has stood out as an effective and innovative leader in this field.   During his tenure here at the Department, where he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, he updated and enhanced the handling of antitrust matters, helped to shape sweeping policy guidelines, and negotiated critical international agreements.   He served as a mentor – and an excellent role model – for a generation of public interest lawyers, including some of the people in this room.   And he helped build the Antitrust Division into the dynamic component it is today.

In 1997, when my predecessor, Attorney General Janet Reno, asked him to Co-Chair the Justice Department’s International Competition Policy Advisory Committee, Jim did not hesitate to answer the call of duty.   The recommendations that he helped to develop continue to serve as guideposts.   And it’s no exaggeration to say that he, his colleagues, and the partners they brought to the table from around the world helped to usher in a new era of global antitrust enforcement.

But government service is only one of the ways in which Jim has given back – to his country as well as his profession – over the course of his remarkable career.   As a past Chairman of the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law, he lent his considerable experience and expertise to a host of policy questions affecting the entire bar – work he continues today as a member of the Section’s International Task Force.   And as an attorney in private practice, he regularly provides counsel to major corporations in both domestic and international matters.

In many ways, Jim’s career has been built on the same commitment that inspired John Sherman’s landmark effort, more than a century ago, to provide legal mechanisms for protecting America’s economic freedom, growth, and opportunity.

A decade before the dawn of the 20th century, Senator Sherman stood before his colleagues in Congress and declared that “Monopolies [are] inconsistent with our form of government. . . . If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.   If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade."

Today, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division continues to live up to Senator Sherman's words – and regularly employs the tools and authorities provided under one of our nation’s most important and enduring laws, the Sherman Antitrust Act, to keep the American economy free from the grip of anticompetitive practices and entities.

Now, as much as ever before, we are committed to smart, fair, and aggressive antitrust enforcement across all sectors of our economy.   And there are few who understand or appreciate the importance of this work better than today’s awardee.

As an antitrust lawyer, Jim has remained steadfast in his commitment, not to any ideology, but to a basic overriding principle – enshrined in law 122 years ago – of a free but fair American marketplace.

As we carry on this essential work, I know everyone in this room is – and, for more than two decades, has been – proud to call Jim Rill a partner, a friend, and a valued member of the Justice Department family.   The American people have been privileged to have him as a strong ally and a fierce advocate.   And the legal profession has benefitted immensely from the leadership of a man upon whom the United States will today bestow an honor reserved for those defined by their “substantial contributions to the protection of American consumers and the preservation of economic liberty.”

Jim, on behalf of the Department of Justice, it’s my pleasure to present you with this year’s Sherman Act Award, which – as the inscriptions reads – is: Presented to James F. Rill, in recognition of his significant lifetime contributions to the development and enforcement of antitrust law and the advancement of antitrust policy internationally. With thanks from a grateful nation.

Jim, your example is an inspiration to us all.   Your indelible contributions – to this Department, and to our nation – are beyond measure.   And your service to the American people has set a standard to which we all should aspire.

Thank you, and congratulations on this well-deserved honor.

U.S WORKS FOR COOPERATION IN CYBERSPACE AMONG NATIONS

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE   

DOD Expands International Cyber Cooperation, Official Says

By Cheryl Pellerin

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 - The Defense Department is moving beyond its traditional treaty allies to expand partnerships in cyberspace, a senior defense office said today.

Steven Schleien, DOD's principal director for cyber policy, said DOD officials are working toward long-term goals of collective cyber self-defense and deterrence.

Schleien spoke at Georgetown University's second annual International Engagement on Cyber here where experts from Washington, the Netherlands and Russia spoke about national security and diplomatic efforts in cyberspace before several hundred students and experts in the field.

"We started with our traditional treaty allies, those with whom we have commitments," Schleien said.

The department started there in accordance with President Barack Obama's international cyberspace strategy, released in May 2011, which says that "hostile acts in cyberspace could compel actions under our mutual defense treaties," he said.

Defense officials worked with DOD allies and NATO staff during the 2010 Lisbon Summit, Schleien said, to bring all NATO networks, civilian and military, under the NATO Cyber Incident Response Center, which is expected to be complete later this year.

Most recently, he said, DOD officials are starting to talk with the Japanese, South Korean and New Zealand defense ministries about cyber security, while working closely with the British and Australian ministries "to talk about a whole spectrum of cyber interoperability."

Cyberspace is a novel arena for defense partnerships, said Schleien, a former arms control official. "In our view ..., arms control doesn't work in cyberspace," he said. " ... I don't know what we would monitor, [or] how we would verify anything in terms of cyber weapons or cyber tools -- an issue my Russian defense colleagues have raised."

Internationally, though, "we do believe that we need to establish norms of international behavior for cyberspace," he added.

"The law of armed conflict comes to mind as one that's essential to DOD," Schleien said, "because in our view, [it] applies to cyberspace as it does to the other operational domains."

U.S. Cyber Command finds it necessary to share information with other countries, but harder to accomplish given its national security mission, Navy Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, Cybercom's director of intelligence, said at the forum.

Cybercom Commander Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander also is the director of the National Security Agency, which Cox called a unique Defense Department and national intelligence collection organization responsible for exploiting potentially adversarial foreign networks for intelligence purposes, within the cyber realm.

"From our perspective, what we're looking at is a global cyber arms race [that] is not proceeding as a leisurely or even linear fashion but is, in fact, accelerating," he said.

The increasingly vertical nature of the threat, Cox added, "is what is motivating my boss and others for a particular sense of urgency in being able to move forward on this."

It's relatively easy to engage with longstanding international partners like the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as Canada and New Zealand, he said.

Beyond those nations, Cox said, "it gets significantly harder."

One of the impediments is the high-level classification of the information, which has "very strict rules on how you can share this with foreign governments," he said.

The bottom line is that military cooperation with foreign countries in cyberspace "is still an extremely difficult environment to try to navigate through," Cox said.

But because cyber defense is a global problem, the admiral added, "if we don't work together with many of those key allies, then we will not be able to make a significant improvement in the current threat environment."

In the United States, Obama's issuance of international cyber strategy was a landmark event in raising critical awareness of the cyber security issue, Christopher Painter, the State Department's coordinator for cyber issues, told the audience.

"The threat certainly has become more acute," he added, but the issue has evolved from a narrow, technical issue to "a national security issue and a foreign policy issue -- and a foreign policy priority."

A growing number of countries have released national cyber security strategies and "organized their government around this issue," Painter said.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Obama's international strategy, he added, she characterized the range of cyber-related issues as constituting "a new foreign policy imperative."

Painter added, "I think that is important because it raises the level of dialogue to something that those people who often didn't play in this sandbox before -- foreign ministries at the heads-of-government level -- are now dealing with."

What the United States is doing domestically feeds into what the nation is doing internationally, he said.

U.S. NAVY SEA HAWK HELICOPTER LANDS ON DECK OF USS INDEPENDENCE

FROM:  U.S. NAVY
Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Robert Chittenden signals for an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the Swamp Foxes of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 to take off from the flight deck of the littoral combat ship USS Independence (LCS 2). Sailors from Independence's Gold crew and embarked Mine Countermeasures Detachment 1 are underway for the ship's transit to San Diego after successfully completing testing on the mine countermeasures mission package. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Trevor Welsh (Released) 120409-N-ZS026-514

SILENCE OF THE DAMS

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
(Photo courtesy Bill Johnson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
Written on APRIL 10, 2012 AT 7:14 AM by JTOZER
Stop that ‘Dam’ Noise: ONR, Engineers Tackle Noise at Hydroelectric Plants
By Tammy J. White, Office of Naval Research
Using research designed to protect warfighters from noise-induced hearing loss in the naval environment, the Office of Naval Research has joined the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to turn down the volume at the nation’s power plants.

ONR will lend its extensive expertise in noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) to help identify noise sources and propose engineering controls at dams and hydroelectric plants nationwide as part of the interagency agreement.

“The Navy in general, and ONR in particular, is leading the curve when it comes to understanding the dangers of noise,” says Kurt Yankaskas, a program manager in ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department. “It’s a serious problem not only in the Navy and Marine Corps, but across modern society.”

The added project scope results in $14,000 in additional federal funding, bringing the total to $109,000, to evaluate and seek new controls for protecting plant workers from hearing damage sustained on the job.
Noise is a research area ONR knows all too well.
“Within ONR, we’re addressing noise-induced hearing loss from all perspectives—engineering, audiology, acquisition programs, medical research and more,” Yankaskas says. “The American public is starting to learn how pervasive our noise exposures are.”
The Bureau of Reclamation maintains and operates 476 dams and 58 hydroelectric power plants across 17 western states. Collectively, dams like the Grand Coulee in Washington and the Hoover in Colorado produce more than 40 billion kilowatts of energy.
By its estimates, that’s enough power to satisfy the needs of 9 million people for one year, offsetting the need for an equivalent 6.8 billion tons of coal or 23.5 million barrels of oil.
It’s no wonder the dams have been labeled national strategic assets. But that power comes at a substantial cost.

“Of our worker’s comp costs, about 20-25 percent is due to hearing loss compensation,” says James Meredith, who manages safety and occupational health, security safety and law enforcement at the Bureau of Reclamation. “That amounts to $1.5 to 2 million dollars per year … Dollar-wise, it’s the largest single component of claims that we have.”
The intense roar of the water threatens the hearing of approximately 5,300 of the organization’s workers across the country, despite attempts to provide employees with personal hearing protection.

“Down near the lower elevations of the power plant, where the water is coming down through the pen stocks and coming down over the turbines, noise can range as much as 115-120 decibels, which is quite loud,” Meredith says. “And [for] every five decibels, that increases by seven or eight factors of loudness.”

That’s louder than the sound output at an average rock concert or music venue, which is estimated to range between 110-115 decibels by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Six sites, of varying sizes, will undergo an initial round of noise surveys this spring, with additional surveys slated later this year for plants operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“In essence, we’re being asked to help look into the issue of noise control to reduce noise exposures,” says ONR’s Yankaskas. “This is an opportunity to transition the approaches we’ve been developing for Sailors and Marines ONR to other federal agencies.”
The Corps’ infrastructure includes power-generating units and plants that provide 25 percent of the nation’s hydropower capacity—but its reach expands to a host of other facility types, says Andrea Pouliot, industrial hygiene program manager.
Some 25,000 miles of commercially navigable channels, 225 lock chambers and 2,500 recreational areas fall under the Corps’ charge. At one facility, the John Day Lock and Dam along the Columbia River, the Corps estimates more than 2.5 million gallons of water crashes down every second the dam operates at 100 percent water discharge capacity.

Pouliot attributes safety controls, such as covering turbine generators, to limiting personnel’s exposure.

“We still do have hearing loss cases, and we are excited and interested in trying to figure out how to control the noise so that we’re able to prevent them,” Pouliot says.
Field measurements, including acoustic octave band and vibration analyses, will be taken at selected facilities in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado regions through May 2012: Grand Coulee, Roza, Chandler, Dalles, Detroit, Estes, Mary’s Lake and Flatiron.
Following a data evaluation period this summer, ONR will propose areas for noise improvement through a range of engineering and technology controls.
Sustained exposure to high sound levels attributed to water, aircraft engines, machine shops and other areas in the naval environment—and sudden intense noises like improvised explosive devices encountered in the field—can all contribute to noise-induced hearing loss over time.

Through the interagency partnership, ONR officials continue their efforts to demonstrate the broad applications of naval science and technology across government and industry as well as sectors such as public health, energy and power.

ONR’s Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Program takes a multi-pronged approach at devising sound solutions in the naval environment: reducing noise at the source; developing personal protective equipment; developing medical prevention and treatment strategies; and evaluating incidence and susceptibility.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE REACHES SETTLEMENT IN E-BOOK PRICE FIXING CASE

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REACHES SETTLEMENT WITH THREE OF THE
LARGEST BOOK PUBLISHERS AND CONTINUES TO LITIGATE AGAINST
APPLE INC. AND TWO OTHER PUBLISHERS TO RESTORE PRICE
COMPETITION AND REDUCE E-BOOK PRICES
Department Settles with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster;
Litigates Against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin to Prevent Continued
Restrictions on Price Competition
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced today that it has reached a settlement with three of the largest book publishers in the United States– Hachette Book Group (USA), HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C. and Simon & Schuster Inc.–and will continue to litigate against Apple Inc. and two other publishers–Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which does business as Macmillan, and Penguin Group (USA)–for conspiring to end e-book retailers' freedom to compete on price, take control of pricing from e-book retailers and substantially increase the prices that consumers pay for e-books. The department said that the publishers prevented retail price competition resulting in consumers paying millions of dollars more for their e-books.

The civil antitrust lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. At the same time, the department filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the department's antitrust concerns with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, and would require the companies to grant retailers–such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble–the freedom to reduce the prices of their e-book titles.

"As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "We allege that executives at the highest levels of these companies–concerned that e-book sellers had reduced prices–worked together to eliminate competition among stores selling e-books, ultimately increasing prices for consumers."

"With today's lawsuit, we are sending a clear message that competitors, even in rapidly evolving technology industries, cannot conspire to raise prices," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Sharis A. Pozen in charge of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. "We want to undo the harm caused by the companies' anticompetitive conduct and restore retail price competition so that consumers can pay lower prices for their e-books."

The department's Antitrust Division and the European Commission cooperated closely with each other throughout the course of their respective investigations, with frequent contact between the investigative staffs and the senior officials of the two agencies. The department also worked closely with the states of Connecticut and Texas to uncover the publishers' illegal conspiracy.

According to the complaint, the five publishers and Apple were unhappy that competition among e-book sellers had reduced e-book prices and the retail profit margins of the book sellers to levels they thought were too low. To address these concerns, they worked together to enter into contracts that eliminated price competition among bookstores selling e-books, substantially increasing prices paid by consumers. Before the companies began their conspiracy, retailers regularly sold e-book versions of new releases and bestsellers for, as described by one of the publisher's CEO, the "wretched $9.99 price point." As a result of the conspiracy, consumers are now typically forced to pay $12.99, $14.99, or more for the most sought-after e-books, the department said.

The department alleges the conspiracy began in the summer of 2009. CEOs from the publishing companies met privately as a group about once per quarter. The meetings took place in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants and were used to discuss confidential business and competitive matters, including Amazon's e-book's retailing practices.

The complaint states that the companies accomplished their conspiracy by agreeing to stop the longstanding practice of selling e-books, as they long sold print books, on wholesale to bookstores, and leaving it to the bookstores to set the price at which they would sell the e-books to consumers. Through their conspiracy, the companies imposed a new model under which the publishers seized e-book pricing authority from all of their retail bookstores and raised prices for e-books.

As stated in the department's complaint, one publisher's CEO said, "Our goal is to force Amazon to return to acceptable sales prices through the establishment of agency contracts in the USA. . . . To succeed our colleagues must know that we entered the fray and follow us."

The publishers also agreed with Apple to pay Apple a 30 percent commission for each e-book purchased through Apple's iBookstore and promised, through a retail price-matching most favored nation (MFN) provision, that no other e-book retailer would sell an e-book title at a lower price than Apple.
As stated in the department's complaint, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs said, "the customer pays a little more, but that's what you [publishers] want anyway."  Based on the commitments to Apple, the publishers imposed agency terms, over some objections, on all other e-book retailers.  As a result, no e-book retailer is able to compete by using its commission to discount or reduce the price that the publishers set for their e-book titles or offer any special sales promotions to encourage consumers to purchase those e-books. The department said that the intent and effect of the publishers' contracts with Apple was to raise the prices that consumers nationwide pay for e-books.

Under the proposed settlement agreement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, they will terminate their agreements with Apple and other e-books retailers and will be prohibited for two years from entering into new agreements that constrain retailers' ability to offer iscounts or other promotions to consumers to encourage the sale of the publishers' e-books.  The settlement does not prohibit Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster from entering new agency agreements with e-book retailers, but those agreements cannot prohibit the retailer from reducing the price set by the publishers.

The proposed settlement agreement also will prohibit Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster for five years from again conspiring with or sharing competitively sensitive information with their competitors. It will impose a strong antitrust compliance program on the three companies, which will include a requirement that each provide advance notification to the department of any e-book ventures they plan to undertake jointly with other publishers and that each regularly report to the department on any communications they have with other publishers. Also for five years, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster will be forbidden from agreeing to any kind of MFN that could undermine the effectiveness of the settlement agreement.

The ongoing litigation against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin seeks to restore price competition among e-book retailers in the sale of the litigating publishers' e-books. Under the existing agency agreements, Macmillan and Penguin prohibit e-book retailers from exercising any pricing discretion on their titles, and Apple is freed from any price competition with other retailers in selling those e-books.
Hachette Book Group USA has its principal place of business in New York City. It publishes e-books and print books through its publishers such as Little, Brown and Company and Grand Central Publishing.

HarperCollins Publishers, L.L.C. has its principal place of business in New York City. It publishes e-books and print books through publishers such as Harper and William Morrow.

Macmillan has its principal place of business in New York City. It publishes e-books and print books through publishers such as Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and St. Martin's Press. Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH owns Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which does business as Macmillan, and has its principal place of business in Stuttgart, Germany.

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. has its principal place of business in New York City. It publishes e-books and print books through publishers such as The Viking press and Gotham Books. Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of The Penguin Group, a division of Pearson plc, which has its principal place of business in London.

Simon & Schuster Inc. has its principal place of business in New York City. It publishes e-books and print books through publishers such as Free Press and Touchstone.

Apple Inc. has its principal place of business in Cupertino, Calif. Among many other businesses, Apple distributes e-books through its iBookstore.
The proposed settlement, along with the department's competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register, as required by the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act. Any person may submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement within 60-days of its publication to John R. Read, Chief, Litigation III Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 Fifth Street, NW, 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20530. At the conclusion of the 60-day comment period, the court may enter the final judgment upon a finding that it serves the public interest.

The court will determine a pretrial schedule for the case against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin once the companies file their responses to the government's lawsuit.

White Board: Brian Deese on the Buffett Rule | The White House

White Board: Brian Deese on the Buffett Rule | The White House

PRESIDENT OBAMA DOES PUSH-UPS

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE
President Barack Obama does push-ups on the White House Basketball Court after a member of the Harlem Globetrotters made a shot, April 9, 2012. The President participated in "Shoot for Strength", a game where children did push-ups for every basketball shot made by the pros, during the 2012 White House Easter Egg Roll festivities. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

U.S. OFFICIAL SPEAKS ABOUT UNCONVENTIONAL GAS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks Robert F. Cekuta
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs University of Warsaw Library
Warsaw, Poland
March 7, 2012
Thank you Mr. Deputy Prime Minister and please let me first of all warmly thank Poland’s Ministry of the Economy, Mexico’s Ministry of Energy, and the International Energy Agency for developing and hosting today’s event.
Today’s is exactly the sort of meeting which can be extremely useful in advancing both global energy security and global economic well being.

The United States has greatly benefitted from this development of shale gas and other unconventional gas resources. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address this past January, we now estimate that the United States has a supply of natural gas which can last America for 100 years. In 2009, the United States became the world’s leading producers of natural gas, to a significant degree because of the judicious use of new technologies that made once inaccessible deposits of natural gas able to be opened, tapped, and developed.

As a result of the development of unconventional natural gas, the United States may well begin exporting natural gas – LNG – by 2014 or 2015. Experts now speak of the United States being self sufficient in natural gas by 2035. Development of unconventional gas resources, resources which amount to over half the U.S. natural gas resources, will support over 600,000 jobs in the United States by the end of this decade.
I should join other speakers in pointing to the benefits in natural gas, a fuel that can back out others that are higher in GHG emissions and other pollutants when burned. Along these lines, there is a considerable amount of attention focused on the further development of natural gas as a fuel for transportation. There is also already a sense that the development of unconventional natural gas has rejuvenated the chemical industry in the United States with experts suggesting we could see a repeat of the 1920’s when the discoveries of oil and natural gas in the United States produced all sorts of breakthroughs and innovations in the chemical sector.

However, we also need to bear in mind the important reality that the development of unconventional natural gas, like the development or realization of other industrial or extractive processes, needs to be done carefully with due attention to potential downsides.

In the United States, this has meant the government, civil society, and private sector enterprises paying attention to the environmental factors associated with the development of natural gas. It has meant particular attention being given to all the aspects of water usage associated with the development of unconventional gas. It has meant study of reports that certain seismic events may be associated with the tapping of shale gas. It has meant too attention and study of the impacts that development of shale or other unconventional natural gas can have on communities and a society. These impacts include the influx of people to areas that had previously been less populated or had been losing population.

It means realizing and taking into account the fact technologies for developing shale or other unconventional gas are not static, but rather are changing and we need to be thinking about how to take into account these technologies and engineering innovations. Awareness of these factors highlights that we need to be attentive to the various technical, environmental, and social aspects that accompany development of unconventional natural gas deposits.

In the United States we have been continuing to work to understand these aspects of the development of unconventional gas and to act upon what we have learned. With the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board Subcommittee on Shale Gas Production, the U.S. has sought to develop – and to share – best practices from government, private, and public sectors. My colleague from Department of Energy, DAS Chris Smith, will be discussing the work of this group later on today.

Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting an on- going study on hydraulic fracturing and its possible impacts on drinking water. Again, the United States is pursuing science-based studies to inform policy making as well as the discussions taking place among the public on unconventional gas.

We are engaging with others countries which may have significant shale or other unconventional gas. In doing so, we make a conscious effort to acquaint them with a much variety of views. Our sense is that there needs to be informed dialogue if we are to get out ahead of potential problems in unconventional gas development.

If are all talking about rules here today, I would like to urge that we look at the experience in the United States, including the need for the involvement, the engagement, of the various stake-holders. I would argue as well that just as the work will continue on the technical and engineering aspects of developing unconventional gas deposits, work will need to continue on the rules applying to how these deposits are developed. I would strongly urge that development of any regulations take into account sound science as a basis.

Our conviction is that if developed in a responsible, environmentally sound manner, unconventional gas can have a beneficial impact on the global energy outlook just as it has had in the United States.
Thank you.

TREASURY NAMES GUATEMALAN NATIONAL AS "SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NARCOTICS TRAFFICKER"

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF THE TRESURY

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced the designation of Guatemalan national Horst Walter Overdick Mejia, a critical link in the drug trade between Colombian producers and the violent Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, as a specially designated narcotics trafficker. Today’s action, taken pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act), prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with this individual and freezes any assets the designee may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

 

Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment of Overdick Mejia for his narcotics trafficking and related firearms activities. On April 3, Guatemalan authorities arrested Overdick Mejia, the head of a major drug trafficking and money laundering organization based in Guatemala. A veteran spice buyer, he used his local contacts and his business acumen to smuggle thousands of kilograms of cocaine to Mexico and on into the United States. It is widely believed that Overdick Mejia is responsible for bringing Los Zetas into Guatemala in 2008 in order to eliminate a competing trafficker and who later became their most important ally in Guatemala. He also laundered millions of U.S. dollars in narcotics proceeds generated by both his own organization as well as Los Zetas. 

 

“Overdick Mejia’s drug trafficking activities and close ties to the Los Zetas makes him a dangerous and critical figure in the Central American narcotics trade,” said OFAC Director Adam J. Szubin. “By designating Overdick Mejia, OFAC is demonstrating its support for the Guatemalan government in its struggle against the threats and violence posed by these international drug gangs.”

 

OFAC coordinated this designation action with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Today’s action is part of ongoing efforts pursuant to the Kingpin Act to apply financial measures against significant foreign narcotics traffickers and their organizations worldwide. The Treasury Department has designated more than 1,000 individuals and entities pursuant to the Kingpin Act since June 2000. 

 

“These are necessary tools we use to ensure that we put dangerous drug trafficking organizations out of business and ensure they cannot exploit the U.S. financial system,” said DEA Chief of Financial Operations John Arvanitis. “Overdick Mejia was a vital link between Colombian drug producers and Mexican cartels such as Los Zetas. This case is yet another example of the united front that law enforcement and regulators must utilize to ensure that organizations such as this one are put out of business forever.”

 

Penalties for violations of the Kingpin Act range from civil penalties of up to $1.075 million per violation to more severe criminal penalties. Criminal penalties for corporate officers may include up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $5 million. Criminal fines for corporations may reach $10 million. Other individuals face up to 10 years in prison and fines pursuant to Title 18 of the United States Code for criminal violations of the Kingpin Act.

 

INTERNET AND TEXT MESSAGES ARE USED TO FIGHT DISEASE

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
Local doctors in Iquitos conduct a follow-up visit with a young Peruvian child as part of NAMRU-6 project on febrile surveillance. (Courtesy of National Naval medical Research Unit 6)
Epidemic Intelligence: Using the Internet & Text Messages to Fight Disease
Filed under EDUCATION & CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY{Local doctors in Iquitos conduct a follow-up visit with a young Peruvian child as part of NAMRU-6 project on febrile surveillance. (Courtesy of National Naval medical Research Unit 6)
In the fiel

In the field of ‘epidemic intelligence,’ public health experts often turn to formal and informal data sources to learn about disease events occurring around the world. Advances in technology have been largely responsible for spurring the ability to augment the type and nature of potential data sources.

For example, unstructured data gleaned from the Internet in near real-time can be of significant value in identifying cues or signals that may indicate a disease outbreak is occurring in somewhere  in the world. This information can then be used to help guide response activities among public health officials when appropriate. The massive amount of data contained on the Internet, along with easy to use search tools and computerized language translation software, help make this work possible.

Websites hosted all over the world allow data to be uploaded from virtually anywhere – for instance, in the middle of the Congo with a cellular or satellite phone – making the Internet a very useful tool for discovering novel outbreaks. Where CNN and the BBC are less likely to provide news coverage, the multitude of non–English websites can provide access to information in remote towns in faraway places.

Surveillance of media and other Internet-based sites has become such a rapid method to learn about incipient outbreaks among humans, animals, and even plants, that agencies such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control have specialized programs to do this work.

Even the Department of Defense has embraced these new tools to help partner nations fight disease. One such tool developed by the DoD is called the Suite for Automated Global Electronic bioSurveillance (SAGES). Launched in 2008, SAGES is a collection of freely-available software tools to use for disease surveillance in countries with limited resources. SAGES was developed jointly by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. It is based on an existing, well-known surveillance tool called ESSENCE, or Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Events. The SAGES suite contains a variety of data collection tools to capture disease data, including web forms, e-mail, digital logbooks, text messages (SMS) and interactive voice response technology.

Of particular interest are text messages that can be sent from points of care – such as clinics, hospitals or the field – directly to local and national offices of a country’s ministry of health. That data could provide information on an individual patient or a group of patients in a clinic, which health officials can then use to identify unusual spikes in disease activity and further investigate. One of the benefits of SAGES is that it operates with little overhead, few technical requirements, and without the need for prior knowledge of circulating diseases. These minimal technical requirements allow for the system to be used in urban centers as well as hard-to-reach rural settings. Data collection via SAGES is currently in use among AFHSC partners in Peru, Cambodia, and the Philippines; and 12 other countries are currently in various stages of SAGES implementation.

By design, such epidemic intelligence tools are far more sensitive than specific to make sure as many events as possible – whether they are naturally occurring or intentionally caused – are captured by the system. Despite their lack of specificity, internet and cellular technologies have made easy and fast access to disease indications and warnings about outbreaks, allowing experts to stop outbreaks sooner than ever possible due to rapid identification, investigation and verification.

TALIBAN FACILTATOR CAPTURED

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

Combined Force Captures Taliban Facilitator

Compiled from International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Releases

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 - An Afghan and coalition security force captured a Taliban facilitator in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Afghanistan's Helmand province today, military officials reported.

The facilitator trained and equipped insurgents throughout northern Helmand province and also built several improvised explosive devices used in attacks against Afghan and coalition security forces, officials said.

The security force also detained several additional insurgents and seized bomb-making materials, officials said.

Also today, an Afghan-led force captured a Taliban facilitator and detained one other suspected insurgent in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province. The facilitator provided roadside bombs and ammunition to insurgents for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.

In Afghanistan operations yesterday:

-- A coalition force seized nearly 400 pounds of suspected narcotics during a patrol in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.

-- A combined force killed Izatullah, the head of the Taliban commission in Faryab province, and two other insurgents in the province's Pashtun Kot district. Izatullah provided weapons and equipment to other Taliban members for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. He also managed the Taliban's financial network in the province and tried to impose Taliban law on local civilians. Izatullah recently replaced Numan, an insurgent leader who was killed March 27 during an operation in the Shirin Tagab district.

In April 7 Afghanistan operations:

-- An Afghan provincial response company supported by coalition forces detained several suspects, confiscated drugs, and seized IED-making components in the Gulistan district of Farah province. A subsequent search of a nearby compound resulted in discovery of hashish, multiple IED-making components and three Afghan police uniforms. All of the items were confiscated and destroyed.

Last week, a provincial response company, along with Afghan and coalition forces, killed several insurgents, detained several other suspected insurgents, seized about 3,190 pounds of poppy seeds and 198 pounds of wet opium and confiscated weapons in Helmand's Baghran district.
 

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT ON U.N. TRANSPARENCY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
U.S. Mission to the United Nations: Statement on Action Taken on Fifth Committee Resolutions from the First Resumed Session of the 66th GA, General Assembly04/10/2012 08:53 AM EDT
Statement by Ambassador Joseph Torsella, U.S. Representative for UN Management and Reform, on Action Taken on Fifth Committee Resolutions from the First Resumed Session of the 66th GA, General Assembly
Ambassador Joseph M Torsella
U.S. Representative for UN Management and Reform
U.S. Mission to the United Nations New York, NYApril 9, 2012

AS DELIVERED
Mr. President,
We are grateful by strong Fifth Committee action on the Capital Master Plan, but are disappointed in the lack of responsible action on public disclosure of the Office of Internal Oversight Services audit reports, air travel reforms, and other items.
Mr. President,

In particular we note, the Fifth Committee and the General Assembly had an opportunity this session to strengthen the UN’s accountability framework and to promote a more modern, efficient and transparent UN that responsibly stewards resources to deliver better results.  But despite the common ground on a number of important areas related to accountability, many Member States took regrettable and premature action to force a vote on and sidetrack the Secretary General’s change management initiative before it has even begun.  This unnecessary action, on an item not even on the agenda for this session, undermines the Charter authority of the Secretary-General and his successors’ as Chief Administrative Officer of the Organization.

The United States strongly supports a more modern, engaged and efficient Secretariat.  We commend the collegial spirit in which the Secretary General shared his internal Change Management Plan with Member States. We also appreciate the Secretary-General’s commitment to forging relationships based on mutual trust, greater flexibility and accountability as outlined in his Change Plan.  We trust that he will consult, as he and his predecessors have, with Member States where our approval is required.  And we note that the Fifth Committee and General Assembly will have ample opportunity to assert their prerogatives on specific initiatives in the normal course of events.

My delegation, therefore, did not support the draft resolution contained in paragraph 17 of A/66/638/Add. 1, and instead proposed a constructive and balanced amendment, allowing Member States to express their concerns while not unduly constraining the Secretary General’s authority.

The resolution as passed indeed erodes rather than promotes a culture of accountability, by attempting to delay the implementation of approximately 50% of all the recommendations of his Change Management Team, claiming these areas as the uncontested prerogative of the General Assembly.  Just one example illustrates the overreach of that claim: Recommendation 40 simply asks the Secretary General to direct his own senior managers to fly economy class for travel of less than six hours on one continent.

My delegation profoundly regrets that some Member States did not seek to achieve the broadest possible agreement on this issue, even when presented with a compromise chairman’s text.   They have departed from the long-standing principle of consensus-based decision-making in the Fifth Committee by including provisions that a significant number of delegations clearly oppose.  We regret that consensus, the legitimate basis of all Fifth Committee decisions, was not achieved this session despite being so clearly within our grasp.  The United States stands ready to work collaboratively to achieve such consensus in the future, as we have always done in the past.
Thank you, Mr. President.

NASA SUPPORTED ROBOTICS COMPETITION

FROM:  NASA
2012 FIRST Robotics Competition included more than 50 teams competing for the Regional championship title.
Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center

NASA-Supported FIRST Robotics Teams Advance to International Championship
High school teams from around the San Francisco Bay area demonstrated their engineering, electronics and programming skills as they designed and built robots for this year’s challenge called Rebound Rumble. The championship games for the Silicon Valley FIRST Robotics Regional Competition were held March 29 – 30, 2012 at San Jose State University (SJSU), Calif.

2012 marked the 21st season of the For Inspiration and Recognition of and Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition, and included more than 50 teams competing for the Regional championship title that would give them a shot at the international championships in April.

“NASA Ames is extremely pleased with the performance of our star teams. Not only did they take first and second in the tournament, but also executed many impressive technologies,” said Mark Leon, manager of the NASA Robotics Alliance Project at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

More than 2,500 fans attended the competition at the SJSU Event Center, where teams from San Jose, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View and Saratoga represented the South Bay area. Total team membership included 1,500 students who were highly motivated pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) academics.

NASA Ames mentored teams Space Cookies #1868 and Cheesy Poofs #254 as part of NASA’s STEM effort, and both teams received NASA grants to support their robotics efforts. This year, both teams won all quarter and semi-finals. The all girl Space Cookies went undefeated until the finals, where they lost to the more experienced Cheesy Poofs. In the past five weeks, NASA-sponsored teams won 232 awards nationwide at FIRST Robotics Regional/District Competitions.

“I couldn’t attend the Silicon Valley Regional, but I watched the scores and rankings on my home computer. I was cheering for the Space Cookies team. I was ecstatic to see they had 10 wins and no losses in the qualifier,” said John Bowland, a NASA Ames employee and faithful fan of the Space Cookies since its start in 2006.

NASA is the largest sponsor of the national FIRST program, supporting five regional competitions and more than 280 teams.

NEW RAPID PRODUCTION OF CANCER-TREATMENT AGENT SHOWS PROMISE

FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Cancer Therapy Gets a Boost from New Isotope

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, April 11, 2012—A new medical isotope project at Los Alamos National Laboratory shows promise for rapidly producing major quantities of a new cancer-treatment agent, actinium 225 (Ac-225).

Using proton beams, Los Alamos and its partner Brookhaven National Laboratory could match current annual worldwide production of the isotope in just a few days, solving critical shortages of this therapeutic isotope that attacks cancer cells. A collaboration between Los Alamos, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge national laboratories is developing a plan for full-scale production and stable supply of Ac-225.

Ac-225 emits alpha radiation. Alpha particles are energetic enough to destroy cancer cells but are unlikely to move beyond a tightly controlled target region and destroy healthy cells. Alpha particles are stopped in their tracks by a layer of skin—or even an inch or two of air.

One of the primary barriers to wider use of Ac-225 has been the lack of an economically viable supply. Scientists at the LANL Isotope Production Facility (IPF) recently completed a successful research and development project in which they explored the accelerator-based production of the isotope. Since 2005, a primary mission for IPF has been production of medical imaging isotopes such as strontium-82 for positron emission tomography, known as PET scans. In addition to medical imaging applications, IPF has had the mission of making isotopes available for national security, environmental studies and a variety of industrial and R&D applications. The Ac-225 work is a first and important step toward the addition of IPF-produced isotopes for medical therapy applications.

The development of new cancer therapies such as Ac-225 was recognized by President Barack Obama in his 2012 State of the Union address, in which he cited the development of such new cancer therapies as Ac-22: “Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched.”

New sources for the isotope are desperately needed, experts note. Ac-225 has historically been produced in an annual volume of between 600 and 800 millicuries through the natural decay of thorium 229 from uranium 233. But the current need for Ac-225 far outstrips the supply made possible by the traditional method of production, and annual demand could reach 100 times as much, perhaps 50,000 millicuries by 2014. In fact, the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee’s isotope group recently cited the gap between production and demand, saying that the United States should “invest in new production approaches of alpha emitters with highest priority for 225Ac.”

The work by Los Alamos helps address the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee’s recommendation has focused on production of research-scale quantities of Ac-225. Production is done by a specialized particle accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), by irradiating thorium target foils. Scientists use a 100 MeV (million-electron-volt) proton beam supplied to the Lab’s Isotope Production Facility and a 200-800 MeV beam supplied to LANL’s Weapons Neutron Research Facility—both of which are part of LANSCE.

“Preliminary experiments indicate that accelerator-based production will be viable at the scale required to support clinical applications,” said Meiring Nortier, the lead LANL scientist on the project.

The Los Alamos proof-of-concept work received recognition at a meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency consultants meeting in 2011. There Nortier presented details about Ac-225 production using accelerators, and he described the nuclear data needs for medical isotope production.

The Ac-225 effort is now shifting to the development of high-power targetry and bulk-scale radiochemical processing to potentially provide this material as a routinely available medical isotope. Los Alamos will be pursuing this goal in conjunction with research teams at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The research indicates that it will be possible to match current annual worldwide production of Ac-225 in just two to five days using the accelerator at Los Alamos and similar facilities at Brookhaven. Estimates are that two to three years of production scale-up and process development will be required before Ac-225 can be produced routinely.

This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science via an award from Office of Nuclear Physics, Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications. The Los Alamos Isotope Program has generated isotopes since the 1970s, with production since 2005 coming from the IPF.

FROM POVERTY IN NIGERIA TO CAPT. IN U.S. AIR FORCE

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Air Force Capt. George Okorodudu stands in front of one of his squadron's fuel tankers at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., Feb. 22, 2012. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Madelyn Ottem

Face of Defense: Airman Lives His American Dream
By Air Force Airman 1st Class Madelyn Ottem
60th Air Mobility Wing
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., April 10, 2012 - The 60th Logistics Readiness Squadron fuels flight commander here is in the process of accomplishing his own definition of "the American dream."

Through hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck, Capt. George Okorodudu made his way from a poverty-stricken village in Nigeria to a commission in the U.S. Air Force.
The youngest of nine children, Okorodudu grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. Hunger was prevalent, and the education system was severely undeveloped, he said.
"After 12 years of school, I did not have the ability to form words with the alphabet," Okorodudu said. "My sisters had a huge Oxford dictionary. I would wake up with it and fall asleep with it until I had learned how to form words."

When he was about 23 years old, an opportunity arose that changed his life. He applied for a U.S. visa through the National Diversity Visa Program. Though coming to America seemed like an unreachable dream, he said, Okorodudu was one of 300 people in Nigeria selected to go through a screening process before being sent to the United States with green cards in 2000.

Okorodudu joined the Air Force soon after, enlisting on April 25, 2001. He said he joined the Air Force over other services because it fit his nature as a strategic thinker.
"The Air Force gave me everything," Okorodudu said. "My military training has made me a better citizen. I believe the Air Force has enabled me to positively affect several lives, and I am very grateful."

Though he is proud of his Air Force service, he said, his proudest moment occurred two years later.

"The greatest thing that happened to me occurred, Aug. 21, 2003," he said. "That's when I received my citizenship. It was a remarkable moment."

Okorodudu distinguished himself an enlisted airman. He received Airman of the Year honors, was promoted to senior airman below the zone, and earned the Leadership Award and John L. Levitow Award at Airman Leadership School, among many other accomplishments.

He finished his bachelor's degree, and was commissioned as an Air Force officer Jan. 18, 2008. Though he didn't learn to read for the first 17 years of his life, Okorodudu also earned his master's degree with a 3.9 grade point average in 2010, and he pinned on his captain bars three months ago.

The crime, poverty and illiteracy that threatened to hold Okorodudu back while he lived in Nigeria proved to be no match for his determination. Because of his background, he said, he has been able to form an unfailingly positive perspective of the opportunities America and the Air Force have provided him.

"To me, my life has improved so greatly all because of the United States Air Force, and it has provided so many opportunities," Okorodudu said. "It's just a question of applying oneself, and you can have it all."