The Middle East nuclear option

In those first minutes, they’ll be stunned. Eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, nerve endings numbed. Today’s issue of Le Monde carries a story on nuclear conflict in the Middle East.  “They’ll just stand there. Soon, you’ll notice that they are holding their arms out at a 45-degree angle.images Your eyes will be drawn to their hands and you’ll think you mind is playing tricks. But it won’t be. Their fingers will start to resemble stalactites, seeming to melt toward the ground. And it won’t be long until the screaming begins. Shrieking. Moaning. Tens of thousands of victims at once. They’ll be standing amid a sea of shattered concrete and glass, a wasteland punctuated by the shells of buildings, orphaned walls, stairways leading nowhere.

“This could be Tehran, or what’s left of it, just after an Israeli nuclear strike.

“Iranian cities — owing to geography, climate, building construction, and population densities — are particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a new study, “Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region. Continue reading “The Middle East nuclear option”

Grown up cyber bullies in Japan

Japan’s version of the “Comment Crew” – a Shanghai-based group believed to be behind Chinese hacking of Western computers – aren’t working inside a military unit like the alleged Chinese hackers, reports Asia Times

images“They are often foreigners with jingoistic views similar to Japanese “netto-uyo” (“Internet rightists”). Their targets include journalists, anti-nuclear campaigners, English teachers and anyone who questions the Japanese government’s handling of immigration, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, the killing of dolphins and whales, and Japan’s hardline stance against China, South Korea and North Korea. Continue reading “Grown up cyber bullies in Japan”

Israeli pets are worried about rocket attacks

When sporadic rocket-attack alarms blared in his Isreali neighborhood in recent months, Lucky would often freeze in confusion as the human residents of his Moshav Gea home ran to their safe room. But during the past week, in which rocket fire and alarms have become routine for the southern community, the large golden dog jets to the shelter automatically. “He follows us to the shelter, he knows,” Kineret Rozen-Edelman, a teacher at Sha’ar Hanegev Regional High School and Gea resident, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “He gets up with us and runs to the shelter.”

Rozen-Edelman was speaking with the Post on Monday morning at around 11 a.m., and she was happy to have had a night of relative quiet from 1:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. Since rescuing the one-and-a-half-year-old Lucky from an Ashkelon shelter about a year ago, Rozen-Edelman and her husband have been training the dog to grow accustomed to using the shelter when necessary. Continue reading “Israeli pets are worried about rocket attacks”