Interesting

Syria: death of a country

As Syria disintegrates, it threatens the entire Middle East. The outside world needs to act before it is too late

AFTER the first world war Syria was hacked from the carcass of the Ottoman empire. After the second, it won its independence. After the fighting that is raging today it could cease to function as a state.

As the world looks on (or away), the country jammed between Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Israel is disintegrating. Perhaps the regime of Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, will collapse in chaos; for some time it could well fight on from a fortified enclave, the biggest militia in a land of militias. Either way, Syria looks increasingly likely to fall prey to feuding warlords, Islamists and gangs—a new Somalia rotting in the heart of the Levant.

If that happens, millions of lives will be ruined. A fragmented Syria would also feed global jihad and stoke the Middle East’s violent rivalries. Mr Assad’s chemical weapons, still secure for now, would always be at risk of falling into dangerous hands. This catastrophe would make itself felt across the Middle East and beyond. And yet the outside world, including America, is doing almost nothing to help.

The road from Damascus

Part of the reason for the West’s hesitancy is that, from the start of the uprising in 2011, Mr Assad has embraced a strategy of violence. By attacking the Arab spring with tanks and gunships, he turned peaceful demonstrators into armed militias. By shelling cities he uprooted his people. By getting his Alawite brethren to massacre the Sunni majority, he has drawn in jihadists and convinced Syrians from other sects to stick with him for fear that his own fall will lead to terrible vengeance.

Syrian blood now flows freely and sectarian hatred is smouldering (see article). The fight could last years. Rebel groups have lately been capturing military bases. They control chunks of the north and east and are fighting in the big cities. But the rebels are rivals as well as allies: they are beginning to target each other, as well as the government’s troops.

Even if Mr Assad cannot control his country, he has every reason to fight on. He still enjoys the cultlike devotion of some of his Alawite sect and the grudging support of other Syrians who fear what might come next. He commands 50,000 or so loyal, well-armed troops—and tens of thousands more, albeit less trained and less loyal. He is backed by Russia, Iran and Iraq, which between them supply money, weapons, advice and manpower. Hizbullah, Lebanon’s toughest militia, is sending in its fighters, too. Mr Assad almost certainly cannot win this war; but, barring an unexpected stroke of fate, he is still a long way from losing it.

So far the fighting has claimed 70,000 or more lives; tens of thousands are missing. The regime has locked up 150,000-200,000 people. More than 2m are homeless inside Syria, struggling to find food and shelter. Almost 1m more are living in squalor over the border.

Suffering on such a scale is unconscionable. That was the lesson from the genocides and civil wars that scarred the last half of the past century. Yet President Barack Obama has suggested that saving lives alone is not a sufficient ground for military action. Having learnt in Afghanistan and Iraq how hard it is to impose peace, America is fearful of being sucked into the chaos that Mr Assad has created. Mr Obama was elected to win economic battles at home. He believes that a weary America should stay clear of yet another foreign disaster.

That conclusion, however understandable, is mistaken. As the world’s superpower, America is likely to be sucked into Syria eventually. Even if the president can resist humanitarian arguments, he will find it hard to ignore his country’s interests.

If the fight drags on, Syria will degenerate into a patchwork of warring fiefs. Almost everything America wants to achieve in the Middle East will become harder. Containing terrorism, ensuring the supply of energy and preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction: unlike, say, the 15-year civil war in Lebanon, Syria’s disintegration threatens them all.

About a fifth of the rebels—and some of the best organised—are jihadists. They pose a threat to moderate Syrians, including Sunnis, and they could use lawless territory as a base for international terror. If they menace Israel across the Golan Heights, Israel will protect itself fiercely, which is sure to inflame Arab opinion. A divided Syria could tear Lebanon apart, because the Assads will stir up their supporters there. Jordan, poor and fragile, will be destabilised by refugees and Islamists. Oil-rich, Shia-majority Iraq can barely hold itself together; as Iraqi Sunnis are drawn into the fray, divisions there will only deepen. Coping with the fallout from Syria, including Mr Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons, could complicate the aim of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Mr Obama wanted to avoid Syria, but Syria will come and get him.

Doing nothing is a policy, too

Syria is more dangerous today than it was in October, when this newspaper called for a no-fly zone in order to ground Mr Assad’s air force. Mr Obama’s policy of waiting for the conflagration in Syria to burn itself out is failing. Rather than see things deteriorate still further, he should act.

His aim should be to preserve what is left of Syria. That means trying to convince the people around Mr Assad that their choice is between ruinous defeat and turfing out the Assad family as a prelude to talks with the rebels. A no-fly zone is still needed to ground Mr Assad’s air force and destroy some of his missiles. It would be a big, bold signal of America’s resolve to Mr Assad’s supporters. America should recognise a transitional government, selected from Syria’s opposition. It should arm non-jihadist rebel groups—including with limited numbers of anti-aircraft missiles. France and Britain would back this, even if other Europeans would not. Russia supports Mr Assad in part to frustrate Mr Obama. Europe and America should keep on trying to tempt it to give him up, by promising it a stake in a liberated Syria.

There are no guarantees that this policy will work. But it will at least build links with the non-jihadist rebels whom America will need as allies in the chaos if Mr Assad stays. Today those moderate Syrians feel utterly abandoned.

Near-Earth Objects Have Different Names for Different Sizes

In the wake of last Friday’s meteor event in Russia and the asteroid fly-by, graphic designer Tim Lillis has released this neat infographic explaining the proper lexicon of near-Earth objects by their size.

Photo: All Wikipedia articles about king, kingdom, and empires are located in Europe, Russia, Israel, and the Middle East. Gallery captions by Olivier Beauchesne

Infographic: An Amazing, Invisible Truth About Wikipedia

HIDING INSIDE WIKIPEDIA’S GEOTAG DATA ARE MAPS OF OLD WARTIME ALLEGIANCES, AND INVISIBLE INTEREST GROUPS.

Every Wikipedia entry has an optional feature we take for granted—geotagging. An entry on the Lincoln Memorial will be linked to its specific latitude and longitude in Washington D.C. On any individual post, this may or may not be a useful thing. But what about looking at these locations en masse?

That was a question asked by data viz specialist and programmer Olivier Beauchesne. To find out, he downloaded all of Wikipedia (it’s open-source, after all) then used an algorithm that would assemble 300 topical clusters from popular, related keywords. Then he placed the location of each article in these topical clusters on a map. What he found was astounding.

Articles about shipwrecks

“I thought I would get only geographical clusters [like mountains],” Beauchesne tells Co.Design, “not topics about abstract subjects like history, archeology, TV shows, race relations, etc.”

In the gallery above, Beauchesne walks us through the findings of several of his maps (it’s worth exploring). Blue is always the baseline—just locations of all Wikipedia articles. The red is where the geolocation of any searched topic appears.

ARTICLES ABOUT MOUNTAINS AGGREGATE TO RECREATE ACTUAL MOUNTAIN RANGES.

You can see that, yes, the mountain ranges are an easy spot. The geotags on articles about mountains aggregate to re-create actual mountain ranges. But there are a slew of other, more fascinating results, too. Articles about beer and wine generate a map of the grape-growing regions in Italy, California, and France. Coastal stories create thin coastal outlines of our continents. War articles paint a picture of the world’s battles, and specific searches including “navy” and “navy battles” will actually draw a picture of World War II. You don’t just see a map of places; you see images of history and culture.

“I was a bit taken aback of the granularity of the geocoding,” Beauchesne admits. “It seems that everywhere on Earth (except jungles, deserts, oceans, etc.) is documented.”

Articles about mountain ranges

Assuming Wikipedia is around for the next century, it would be incredible to watch the dark spots of the map fill in with knowledge, as submarines take us deeper into the ocean and as historians learn more about past cultures. Eventually, Beauchesne’s maps evolve to something more than the locations of everything in the world. They become the locations of, quite simply, everything we know.

See more here.

[Hat tip: Visualizing]

MARK WILSON

Mark Wilson is a writer who started Philanthroper.com, a simple way to give back every day. His work has also appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, … CONTINUED

Is Syria’s Bashar Assad using chemical weapons on his people?

The State Department now believes so, according to a leaked report. This news comes on the heels of reports that explosions have torn through Syrian universities, killing over 80 people on the day exams began. More than 50 countries have urged the UN to refer the Syrian crisis to the International Criminal Court. But Russia, Assad’s main backer and Syria’s longtime arms supplier, blocked the initiative.

thedailywhat:

Zorbing Gone Wrong

Zorbing, the sport of rolling downhill in an orb, goes horribly wrong on a Russian ski slope. According to Redditor Boogaloo’s unverified comment, it has been rumored that the fatal accident may have taken place at a ski resort in Dombai, Russia, near the Georgian border.

The Return of Toxic Nationalism. By ROBERT D. KAPLAN

The spread of universal values is being rolled back on many fronts, from Russia to the Middle East.

Western elites believe that universal values are trumping the forces of reaction. They wax eloquent about the triumph of human rights, women’s liberation, social media, financial markets, international and regional organizations and all the other forces that are breaking down boundaries separating humanity.
Tragically, they are really observing a self-referential world of global cosmopolitans like themselves. In country after country, the Westerners identify like-minded, educated elites and mistake them for the population at large. They prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces—such as nationalism and sectarianism—that are mightily reshaping the future.

Take Cairo’s Tahrir Square in early 2011. Western journalists celebrated the gathering of relatively upper-income Arab liberals with whom they felt much in common, only to see these activists quickly retreat as post-autocratic Egypt became for many months a struggle among the military, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Salafists—with the Coptic Christians fearing for their communal survival.

Ryan Inzana

Though secular liberals have resurfaced to challenge Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, do not be deceived. The military and the Muslim Brotherhood both have organized infrastructures. The liberals have only spontaneous emotion and ad hoc organizations. An Islamist-Nasserite regime-of-sorts is likely to emerge, as the military uses the current vulnerability of the Muslim Brotherhood to drive a harder bargain.

Egypt and the Middle East now offer a panorama of sectarianism and religious and ethnic divides. Freedom, at least in its initial stages, unleashes not only individual identity but, more crucially, the freedom to identify with a blood-based solidarity group. Beyond that group, feelings of love and humanity do not apply. That is a signal lesson of the Arab Spring.

An analogous process is at work in Asia. Nationalism there is young and vibrant—as it was in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Asia is in the midst of a feverish arms race, featuring advanced diesel-electric submarines, the latest fighter jets and ballistic missiles. China, having consolidated its land borders following nearly two centuries of disorder, is projecting air and sea power into what it regards as the blue national soil of the South China and East China seas.

Japan and other countries are reacting in kind. Slipping out of its quasi-pacifistic shell, Japan is rediscovering nationalism as a default option. The Japanese navy boasts roughly four times as many major warships as the British Royal Navy. As for Vietnam and the Philippines, nobody who visits those countries and talks with their officials, as I have, about their territorial claims would imagine for a moment that we live in a post-national age.
The disputes in Asia are not about ideology or any uplifting moral philosophy; they are about who gets to control space on the map. The same drama is being played out in Syria where Alawites, Sunnis and Kurds are in a territorial contest over power and control as much as over ideas. Syria’s writhing sectarianism—in which Bashar Assad is merely the leading warlord among many—is a far cruder, chaotic and primitive version of the primate game of king of the hill.

Nationalism is alive and thriving in India and Russia as well. India’s navy and air force are in the process of becoming among the world’s largest. Throughout most of history, India and China had little to do with each other, separated as they were by the Himalayas. But the collapse of distance by way of technology has created a new strategic geography for two big nations. Now Indian space satellites monitor Chinese military installations, even as Chinese fighter jets in Tibet have the possibility of including India within their arc of operations. This rivalry has further refined and invigorated nationalism in both countries.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s nationalism is a large factor in his high popularity. President Putin’s nationalism is geographical determinism: He wants to recreate buffer states in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, like in the old Soviet Union. So he does everything he can to undermine the countries in these regions.

Western elites hope that if somehow there were truly free elections in Russia, then this foreign policy might change. The evidence is to the contrary. Race-hatred against Muslims is high among Russians, and just as there are large rallies by civil-society types, there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by the Western media. Local elections in October returned a strong showing for Mr. Putin’s party. Like it or not, he is representative of the society he governs.

Nor can Europe be left out of this larger Eurasian trend. A weakening European Union, coupled with onerous social and economic conditions for years to come, invites a resurgence of nationalism and extremism, as we have already seen in countries as diverse as Hungary, Finland, Ukraine and Greece. That is exactly the fear of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee, which gave this year’s award to the European Union in order to make a statement against this trend.

Fascists are not about to regain power anywhere on the Continent, but the age of deepening European integration is likely behind us. Get ready to see more nasty and thoroughly frightening political groupings like Greece’s Golden Dawn emerge across the Continent.

We truly are in a battle between two epic forces: Those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized faith. It is the mistake of Western elites to grant primacy to the first force, for it is the second that causes the crises with which policy makers must deal—often by interacting with technology in a toxic fashion, as when a video transported virtually at the speed of light ignites a spate of anti-Americanism (if not specifically in Benghazi).

The second force can and must be overcome, but one must first admit how formidable it is. It is formidable because nations and other solidarity groups tend to be concerned with needs and interests more than with values. Just as the requirement to eat comes before contemplation of the soul, interests come before values.

Yet because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation—and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disorderly world. Yet we should not be overturning existing orders overnight. For it is precisely weak democracies and collapsing autocracies that provide the chaotic breathing room with which nationalist and sectarian extremists can thrive.

Mr. Kaplan is chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor, a private global intelligence firm, and author of “The Revenge of Geography” (Random House, 2012).

A version of this article appeared December 24, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Return of Toxic Nationalism.

Tense talks around national regulation of the internet. At the International Telecommunications Union talks in Dubai, a surprise proposal has emerged backed by Arab states, Russia, and China to require governments to regulate Internet companies. Enshrining this in an international treaty could add legitimacy to online restrictions and censorship by repressive regimes. The discussions are supposed to lead to a final treaty by Friday.

A Comparative Study of Electrical Outlets

Top row: United Kingdom ; India/Pakistan/South Africa ; Israel ; Denmark

Middle row: China/Australia ; France ; Germany/South Korea ; Russia

Bottom row: Italy ; Canada/United States/Mexico ; Japan ; Switzerland/Brazil

Talks continue on control of the internet.

american-samoa:

A UN agency, the International Telecommunications Union, has been meeting in Dubai to discuss proposals for regulating the internet. Some American commentators say this sort of talk is terrible, as it may lead to repressive regimes being able to suppress comment about them made in freer societies. The New York Times’s Eric Pfanner argues that the panic is overblown. Talks began yesterday and continue today.

TALKS

Vicki Arroyo: Let’s prepare for our new climate

Set aside the politics: Data shows that climate change is happening, measurably, now. And as Vicki Arroyo says, it’s time to prepare our homes and cities for the new climate, with its increased risk of flooding, drought and uncertainty. She illustrates this inspiring talk with bold projects from cities all over the world — local examples of thinking ahead.

Vicki Arroyo uses environmental law and her background in biology and ecology to help prepare for global climate change. Full bio »

This is the skyline of my hometown, New Orleans. It was a great place to grow up, but it’s one of the most vulnerable spots in the world. Half the city is already below sea level. In 2005, the world watched as New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. One thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six people died. Nearly 300,000 homes were lost. These are my mother’s, at the top — although that’s not her car, it was carried there by floodwaters up to the roof — and that’s my sister’s, below. Fortunately, they and other family members got out in time, but they lost their homes, and as you can see, just about everything in them.

Other parts of the world have been hit by storms in even more devastating ways. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis and its aftermath killed 138,000 in Myanmar. Climate change is affecting our homes, our communities, our way of life. We should be preparing at every scale and at every opportunity.

This talk is about being prepared for, and resilient to the changes that are coming and that will affect our homes and our collective home, the Earth.

The changes in these times won’t affect us all equally. There are important distributional consequences, and they’re not what you always might think. In New Orleans, the elderly and female-headed households were among the most vulnerable. For those in vulnerable, low-lying nations, how do you put a dollar value on losing your country where you ancestors are buried? And where will your people go? And how will they cope in a foreign land? Will there be tensions over immigration, or conflicts over competition for limited resources? It’s already fueled conflicts in Chad and Darfur. Like it or not, ready or not, this is our future.

Sure, some are looking for opportunities in this new world. That’s the Russians planting a flag on the ocean bottom to stake a claim for minerals under the receding Arctic sea ice.But while there might be some short-term individual winners, our collective losses will far outweigh them. Look no further than the insurance industry as they struggle to cope with mounting catastrophic losses from extreme weather events.

The military gets it. They call climate change a threat multiplier that could harm stability and security, while governments around the world are evaluating how to respond.

So what can we do? How can we prepare and adapt? I’d like to share three sets of examples, starting with adapting to violent storms and floods. In New Orleans, the I-10 Twin Spans, with sections knocked out in Katrina, have been rebuilt 21 feet higher to allow for greater storm surge. And these raised and energy-efficient homes were developed by Brad Pitt and Make It Right for the hard-hit Ninth Ward. The devastated church my mom attends has been not only rebuilt higher, it’s poised to become the first Energy Star church in the country. They’re selling electricity back to the grid thanks to solar panels, reflective paint and more. Their March electricity bill was only 48 dollars.

Now these are examples of New Orleans rebuilding in this way, but better if others act proactively with these changes in mind. For example, in Galveston, here’s a resilient home that survived Hurricane Ike, when others on neighboring lots clearly did not. And around the world, satellites and warning systems are saving lives in flood-prone areas such as Bangladesh.

But as important as technology and infrastructure are, perhaps the human element is even more critical. We need better planning and systems for evacuation. We need to better understand how people make decisions in times of crisis, and why. While it’s true that many who died in Katrina did not have access to transportation, others who did refused to leave as the storm approached, often because available transportation and shelters refused to allow them to take their pets. Imagine leaving behind your own pet in an evacuation or a rescue. Fortunately in 2006, Congress passed the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (Laughter) — it spells “PETS” — to change that.

Second, preparing for heat and drought. Farmers are facing challenges of drought from Asia to Africa, from Australia to Oklahoma, while heat waves linked with climate change have killed tens of thousands of people in Western Europe in 2003, and again in Russia in 2010.

In Ethiopia, 70 percent, that’s 7-0 percent of the population, depends on rainfall for its livelihood. Oxfam and Swiss Re, together with Rockefeller Foundation, are helping farmers like this one build hillside terraces and find other ways to conserve water, but they’re also providing for insurance when the droughts do come. The stability this provides is giving the farmers the confidence to invest. It’s giving them access to affordable credit. It’s allowing them to become more productive so that they can afford their own insurance over time, without assistance. It’s a virtuous cycle, and one that could be replicated throughout the developing world.

After a lethal 1995 heat wave turned refrigerator trucks from the popular Taste of Chicago festival into makeshift morgues, Chicago became a recognized leader, tamping down on the urban heat island impact through opening cooling centers, outreach to vulnerable neighborhoods, planting trees, creating cool white or vegetated green roofs. This is City Hall’s green roof, next to Cook County’s [portion of the] roof, which is 77 degrees Fahrenheit hotter at the surface. Washington, D.C., last year, actually led the nation in new green roofs installed, and they’re funding this in part thanks to a five-cent tax on plastic bags. They’re splitting the cost of installing these green roofs with home and building owners. The roofs not only temper urban heat island impact but they save energy, and therefore money, the emissions that cause climate change, and they also reduce stormwater runoff. So some solutions to heat can provide for win-win-wins.

Third, adapting to rising seas. Sea level rise threatens coastal ecosystems, agriculture,even major cities. This is what one to two meters of sea level rise looks like in the Mekong Delta. That’s where half of Vietnam’s rice is grown.

Infrastructure is going to be affected. Airports around the world are located on the coast. It makes sense, right? There’s open space, the planes can take off and land without worrying about creating noise or avoiding tall buildings. Here’s just one example, San Francisco Airport, with 16 inches or more of flooding. Imagine the staggering cost of protecting this vital infrastructure with levees. But there might be some changes in store that you might not imagine. For example, planes require more runway for takeoff because the heated, less dense air, provides for less lift. San Francisco is also spending 40 million dollars to rethink and redesign its water and sewage treatment, as water outfall pipes like this one can be flooded with seawater, causing backups at the plant, harming the bacteria that are needed to treat the waste. So these outfall pipes have been retrofitted to shut seawater off from entering the system.

Beyond these technical solutions, our work at the Georgetown Climate Center with communities encourages them to look at what existing legal and policy tools are available and to consider how they can accommodate change. For example, in land use, which areas do you want to protect, through adding a seawall, for example, alter, by raising buildings, or retreat from, to allow the migration of important natural systems, such as wetlands or beaches?

Other examples to consider. In the U.K., the Thames Barrier protects London from storm surge. The Asian Cities Climate [Change] Resilience Network is restoring vital ecosystems like forest mangroves. These are not only important ecosystems in their own right, but they also serve as a buffer to protect inland communities.

New York City is incredibly vulnerable to storms, as you can see from this clever sign, and to sea level rise, and to storm surge, as you can see from the subway flooding. But back above ground, these raised ventilation grates for the subway system show that solutions can be both functional and attractive. In fact, in New York, San Francisco and London, designers have envisioned ways to better integrate the natural and built environments with climate change in mind.

I think these are inspiring examples of what’s possible when we feel empowered to plan for a world that will be different. But now, a word of caution. Adaptation’s too important to be left to the experts. Why? Well, there are no experts. We’re entering uncharted territory, and yet our expertise and our systems are based on the past. “Stationarity” is the notion that we can anticipate the future based on the past, and plan accordingly, and this principle governs much of our engineering, our design of critical infrastructure, city water systems, building codes, even water rights and other legal precedents. But we can simply no longer rely on established norms. We’re operating outside the bounds of CO2 concentrations that the planet has seen for hundreds of thousands of years.

The larger point I’m trying to make is this. It’s up to us to look at our homes and our communities, our vulnerabilities and our exposures to risk, and to find ways to not just survive, but to thrive, and it’s up to us to plan and to prepare and to call on our government leaders and require them to do the same, even while they address the underlying causes of climate change.

There are no quick fixes. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. We’re all learning by doing.But the operative word is doing. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)

Russian El Al leaflet presents Israeli map – sans W. Bank, Golan

Leaflets carrying El Al logo in Russia include a map of Israel missing West Bank, Golan. El Al: ‘Not an official El Al leaflet’

Leaflets carrying the El Al logo, which were handed out to passengers in Russia include a map of Israel that seems to be missing the West Bank and the Golan. The leaflet that was handed out to passengers at Moscow’s airport, created a furor among many Israelis who have already sought out the company’s Facebook page in order to express their grievances. Yet the company claims that a foreign source is behind the leaflet distribution.

The leaflet includes El Al’s company information, its development, transportation details, lounges and more.

The questionable leaflet

The map in the leaflet points out central cities and notable sites in Israel but the West Bank seems as if it has been “bitten” out of the map while the Golan doesn’t even make an appearance.

At the top of the leaflet readers will find the El Al Russian website address – www.el-al.ru – which is the correct address, but no such map appears or is mentioned on the website.

El Al said in response: “Following the publication of the leaflet map image, we wish to make it clear: All of El Al’s official publications include the official map of Israel.

“An initial probe reveals that the leaflet is not an official El Al leaflet and no such official leaflet has been published on behalf of the company. We will continue to look into the matter.”

30,000 Year-Old Plant

Researchers at the Russian Academy of Science’s Soil Cryology Lab have managed to grow flowers using 30,000 year-old seeds preserved in the Russian permafrost.

The seeds of Silene stenophylla were buried by squirrels during the Upper Pleistocene, and covered with layers of frozen soil over thousands of years. Researchers eventually recovered them 125 feet below ground, still perfectly preserved at -7 degrees celsius.

The discovery makes S. stenophylla the oldest known plant species to be revived from ancient seeds, topping the 2,000 year-old “Phoenix palm” grown by Israeli scientists in 2008.

[discover]

DEBKAfile: Assad wins out against opposition as Russia and Iran strengthen ties

No qualms about tank fire against residential buildings

Western intelligence sources reporting in real time found Saturday night, Feb. 11, that Bashar Assad’s loyal military and security forces had by and large managed to subdue the rebellion against the regime. They are now purging the last pockets of resistance, especially in Syria’s third largest city, Homs. Still to come are possible flare-ups here and there and inevitably more horror stories of atrocities, but to all intents and purposes Syria’s eleven-month uprising is all but over.

In recent days, mass demonstrations and battles with armed rebels have virtually disappeared from the streets of the main protest centers of Daraa, Hama, Deir al-Zour, Abu Kemal, Zabadan and the restive outskirts of Damascus, which armed rebels briefly captured last month.
In Homs, soldiers of the 40^th and 90^th mechanized brigades are hunting down rebels hiding in the town and shooting them on sight.
A new name joined the gallery of Syrian mass murderers this week: Gen. Zuhair al-Assad, commander of the brutal six-day tank-backed assault and siege of Homs. This kinsman of the president had no qualms about gunning down hundreds of civilians in order to liquidate a small armed rebel group.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that without outside armed intervention to halt the bloodbath – and there is no sign of any repetition of the NATO action which cut short Muammar Qaddafi’s long reign – Bashar Assad will soon finish crushing the popular and armed resistance against him, helped by arms and military backing from Russia, Iran and Hizballah.

Military intervention is not on the cards for the United States - Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu was told Friday, Feb. 9 when he arrived in Washington to request US participation in organizing a Turkish-Arab operation in Syria or, at least, the supply of Western and Arab arms to the Syrian rebels.

Of the six revolts against Arab autocracies in the past year, two were crushed. The King of Bahrain was saved by Saudi and Gulf military support and now Assad looks like being the second survivor. The difference between them is that the Al-Khalifa House of Bahrain was rescued by Arab forces while the Syrian president is stamping out the uprising against him with the help of non-Arab powers, Iran and Russia.

Both powers sent important officials to Damascus last week: Iran’s al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani was there Sunday and Monday (5-6 Feb.) at the head of a large military-intelligence delegation. No sooner was it gone when Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and SVR intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov were deposited at the door of Assad’s presidential palace.
According to DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources, both were on missions to finalize Russian-Iranian-Syrian collaboration in Syria and the Middle East after the regime finally suppresses the revolt.

Saturday night, Moscow pledged to continue to shield the Assad regime at the United Nations Although fighting continues in some places, Bashar Assad is at the threshold of a major success. His victory may be short-lived but it is significant all the same, offering kudos for the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah alliance and a contretemps for the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Russians unveil space hotel. By Tiffany Lam

Plans to open the first-ever space hotel in 2016. But what’s there to do up there?
Russia’s space hotel, or Commercial Space Station, will be aimed at crazy-rich space tourists, as well as
corporate and industrial researchers. In other words, not you.

“Getting away from it all” may be a travel marketing cliché, but the phrase might take on a whole new meaning come 2016.

Russian firm Orbital Technologies plans to open the first space hotel in history in five year’s time.

The space hotel, or “Commercial Space Station,” as it’s officially called, will float 250 miles above Earth.

The hotel can accommodate a maximum of seven people at a time.

To check in, tourists will have to undergo special training that can take up to three months, depending on the type of spacecraft they fly to the hotel.

The firm says that stays can range from three days to six months.

On-board recreation

Spending your vacation in space will no doubt inspire travel stories like no other, but what’s there to do once you’re sealed in up there?

Not much, it turns out, apart from going online and watching TV.

“Most likely, there will be access to the Internet and other communications on the ground,” says Sergey Kostenko, CEO of Orbital Technologies, the company constructing the station.

“Menus will be chosen before the clients are launched,” Kostenko adds. “Food is prepared on the ground and shipped to space, dehydrated.” No impulsive late-night snacking then.

There will be no shower, but you can clean yourself with wet wipes. Fun!

You can’t seek solace in alcohol either, because it’s banned on board.

However, Kostenko says he hopes that the station can be a stopover for manned circumlunar flights, so making day trips to the far side of the moon and back may be a day-trip option.

Space industry cash cow

Orbital Technologies plans to use Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts to transport passengers and workers to the “great gig in the sky,” although it does not rule out using other manned spacecraft made in the United States, Europe and China.

The firm is tight-lipped about how much it will cost to stay at the hotel, although the Russian government is hoping that the project can be a cash cow for its space exploration program.

“We consider the Commercial Space Station a very interesting project, encouraging private participation,” says Vitaly Davydov, Deputy Head of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation. “It will attract private investment for the Russian space industry.”

Orbital Technologies will not confirm whether it has taken any reservations from customers yet, but says there are “many interested parties.”