Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

White House Authorizes Airstrikes in Iraq
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Member of ISIS

Reuters

US President Barack Obama has authorized "limited airstrikes" against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Iraq, he announced during a Thursday night press conference.

The announcement, which surfaced hours after White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Washington was "very concerned" over the "humanitarian catastrophe" developing there.

“When many thousands of innocent civilians are in danger of being wiped out, and we have the capacity to help, we will take action,” Obama said. “When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.”

Obama dismissed fears of the US entering into another direct conflict in the region, however. 

“As Commander in Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,” he said. “American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq." 

According to TIME, the White House spent much of Thursday evening notifying lawmakers of the decision, but did not secure specific Congressional authorization for the move. 

The White House has also authorized a series of humanitarian airdrops, and an anonymous Administration official stated to the daily that US forces stand at the ready to provide more. 

“We will continue to provide airdrops, should we see a need, and we expect that need to continue,” the official said. 

Humanitarian aid is aimed for the ethnic Yazidis, who were protected by Kurdish forces until earlier this week. Over 200,000 Yazidi have been exiled from Iraq so far, forced to flee due to the ISIS's campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Approximately 50,000 Yazidi are estimated to have been left stranded in the Sinjar Mountains with no food, water or medical supplies, after Kurdish forces retreated in the face of Islamist advances.

The revelation prompted the Kurds to call on Washington to help, after experiencing difficulty getting in touch with the refugees.

U.S. Begins Air Strikes Against ISIS Targets in Iraq, Pentagon Says
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsDebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The US military has begun air strikes against Islamic militant targets in Iraq, the Pentagon announced on Friday.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said aircraft struck artillery being used against Kurdish peshmerga forces defending the Kurdish stronghold of Irbil against fighters with the Islamic State, known as Isis or Isil.
Two FA-18 jets, launched from the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf, dropped 500lb bombs on what the Pentagon described as a “mobile artillery piece”.
Isis was using the artillery to shell Kurdish forces defending Irbil, where US forces are based, the US said.

Study Reveals Most American Pastors Silent on Current Issues Despite Biblical Beliefs
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsProphecy New Watch
Categories: Apostasy;Commentary

Most pastors believe that the Bible addresses the current issues of the day, but few speak about them from behind the pulpit, according to a recent study from a prominent research organization.

George Barna was a guest on the American Family Radio program “Today’s Issues” on Thursday, where he explained a research project that he has been working on for the past two years. 

In his study, Barna’s organization asked pastors across the country about their beliefs regarding the relevancy of Scripture to societal, moral and political issues, and the content of their sermons in light of their beliefs.

“‘What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of them are] telling us, ‘Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues,” he explained. “Then we ask them: ‘Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?’ and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.”

Barna’s group also polled pastors about what factors they use to gauge whether or not a church is successful.

“There are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to,” he outlined. “Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage.”

“What I’m suggesting is [those pastors] won’t probably get involved in politics because it’s very controversial. Controversy keeps people from being in the seats, controversy keeps people from giving money, from attending programs,” Barna said.

Pastor Chuck Baldwin, a radio broadcaster and former presidential candidate, commented on the study in an article published on Friday entitled Odds Are that Your Pastor is Keeping the Truth from You Instead of Preaching It. He opined that Barna’s research shows that most pastors deliberately choose not to speak on the issues of the day despite knowing that the Bible speaks to them.

“That 90% of America’s pastors are not addressing any of the salient issues affecting Christian people’s political or societal lives should surprise no one,” he wrote. “It has been decades since even a sizable minority of pastors have bothered to educate and inform their congregations as to the Biblical principles relating to America’s political, cultural and societal lives.”

“Please understand this: America’s malaise is directly due to the deliberate disobedience of America’s pastors—and the willingness of the Christians in the pews to tolerate the disobedience of their pastor. Nothing more! Nothing less!” Baldwin continued. “When Paul wrote his own epitaph, it read, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ (II Timothy 4:7) He didn’t say, ‘I had a large congregation, we had big offerings, we had a lot of programs, I had a large staff, and we had large facilities.’”

“It is time for Christians to acknowledge that these ministers are not pastors; they are CEOs. They are not Bible teachers; they are performers. They are not shepherds; they are hirelings,” he said. “It is also time for Christians to be honest with themselves: do they want a pastor who desires to be faithful to the Scriptures, or do they want a pastor who is simply trying to be ‘successful?’”

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/August14/145.html#Q5JGJTyGajxKKVZ8.99

South Sudan Atrocities Amount to War Crimes, Report Warns
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Guardian
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Dire conditions at a UN camp for internally displaced people in Malakal. The conflict has displaced about 1.5 million South Sudanese people. Photograph: Matthew Abbott/AP

Both sides in South Sudan’s eight-month civil war have committed “extraordinary acts of cruelty” that amount to war crimes, and potentially, crimes against humanity, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a report on the atrocities carried out in the world’s youngest country since president Salva Kiir accused his vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup last December, the group catalogues crimes ranging from the ethnically motivated murder of civilians to gang rapes and the mass destruction and looting of civilian property.

Such acts, it says, have defined the conflict, which is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people, driven 1.5 million South Sudanese from their homes and left almost 5 million in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

“South Sudan’s death toll in this new war is unknown but thousands of civilians have been killed, homes and markets burned, and bodies left to be eaten by birds and dogs,” says the report.

It calls on the UN security council, which is due to visit South Sudan next week, to hold both sides to account: “The scale and gravity of the abuses warrant a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan, as well as targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for serious violations of international law.”

The group’s 92-page study, based on interviews with more than 400 survivors and witnesses of the violence, argues that the rivalry between Kiir, who is a Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, has once again pitted South Sudan’s two largest ethnic groups against each other.

“Government rhetoric has attempted to underplay the ethnic dimension, but with little success: many communities believe that leaders, soldiers or armed civilians from the other ethnic group will continue to target and physically attack and politically undermine them,” it says.

The fighting, which erupted in the capital, Juba, on 15 December last year, saw a massacre of Nuer men in the city within 24 hours. The killings drove many Nuers to take up arms in support of Machar and tens of thousands of others to seek shelter in UN bases across the country, where many remain.

While government forces have continued to “harass and attack” the Nuers in these bases, says HRW, the opposition has launched brutal attacks in towns such as Bentiu, Malakal and Bor.

“In early January, opposition forces shot and killed remaining civilians in Bor over a two-week period, looting and burning many homes,” says the report. “In Bentiu opposition forces were responsible for a horrific massacre in a mosque in April.

“In both Bentiu and Malakal, opposition forces attacked hospitals, killing patients and civilians who had taken refuge there. As far as HRW has been able to ascertain, the opposition has not made any efforts to hold forces to account for these and other crimes.”

According to HRW, both the ferocity of the violence and the speed with which it spread are explained by the country’s long history of war, criminal violence and ethnic tensions.

“Serious crimes committed in violation of international law against Nuer and Dinka communities by fighters from both Nuer and Dinka-led rebel factions in Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war, ahead of southern independence, were never addressed,” it says.

“Fear of repetition and anger over those crimes created conditions for the current conflict and the abuses being perpetrated in it.”

Unless proper efforts are made to end such abuses, ensure accountability and justice, and promote reconciliation, argues HRW, South Sudan will remain a prisoner to its bloody past.

“The crimes against civilians in South Sudan over the past months, including ethnic killings, will resonate for decades,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It is essential for both sides to end the cycle of violence against civilians immediately, and to acknowledge and support the need for justice.”

The report comes amid warnings that parts of South Sudan are at risk of famine and days after six South Sudanese humanitarian workers were murdered, apparently because of their Nuer ethnicity.

The killings, thought to have been carried out by a local militia with a grudge against Nuers, forced the UN to evacuate 220 staff and aid workers from Maban county in the north-east of the country.

On Wednesday, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, condemned the “simply appalling” murders, adding that such violence served only to underscore the importance of the faltering peace talks under way in Addis Ababa.

He added: “In the face of the worsening security and humanitarian situation, it is more urgent than ever that both parties come to the table … ready to engage in multi-stakeholder political negotiations.

“These talks are critical to resolving the conflict and moving forward on the commitment to form a transitional government as the government of South Sudan and the opposition agreed to on 10 June.”

Robot Folds Itself Up and Walks Away: Potential for Sophisticated Machines That Build Themselves
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsScience Daily
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A team of engineers used little more than paper and Shrinky dinks™ -- the classic children's toy that shrinks when heated -- to build a robot that assembles itself into a complex shape in four minutes flat, and crawls away without any human intervention. The advance, described in Science, demonstrates the potential to quickly and cheaply build sophisticated machines that interact with the environment, and to automate much of the design and assembly process. The method draws inspiration from self-assembly in nature, such as the way linear sequences of amino acids fold into complex proteins with sophisticated functions.

President Obama Approves Air Strikes, Emergency Airlift of Supplies to Iraq
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsNews.com.au
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Rations ... Iraqi Yazidi families who fled the violence are given food at a school where they are taking shelter. Source: AFP Source: AFP

TONY Abbott has backed US President Barack Obama’s authorisation of air strikes in Iraq to stop the “genocide” of 40,000 refugees under threat from Islamic jihadists.

Mr Abbott said the terrorist group Islamic State, formerly known as ISIL or ISIS, had emerged as a major threat in Syria and Iraq.

“If it is allowed to succeed in carving out a terrorist state in the Middle East it will also pose a significant threat to international security,” Mr Abbott said.

He understood the air strikes were intended to support US personnel located in Erbil and also to break the ISIL siege of Sinjar.

“The Australian government is extremely concerned by the threat posed by ISIL and the even greater threat it will pose if it succeeds in its latest offensive,” Mr Abbott said.

“Therefore we strongly support President Obama’s course of action.”

He said it was no longer an evil terrorist group but a “highly potent insurgent army” capable of holding territory, imposing its “abhorrent form of government” and forging alliances with other extremist organisations.

Mr Abbott’s comments come after President Obama said: “America is coming to help.”

“We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide,” the president told a gathering of journalists at the White House, referring to the attacks against the besieged Yazidi and Christian minorities.

“I therefore authorised targeted air strikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege and protect the civilians trapped there,” he said.

President Obama, who did not say whether air strikes have been carried out, said US forces have already started to drop food and water to Iraqis racing to flee the so-called Islamic State fighters.

“Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, there is no one coming to help. Well, today America is coming to help,” he said.

Strikes authorised ... President Barack Obama speaks about the situation in Iraq. Picture: AP Source: AP

“When we face a situation like we do on that mountain, with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help — in this case a request from the Iraqi government — and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” he said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also expressed his deep concern about the situation in Iraq and welcomed US President Barack Obama’s decision to authorise air strikes.

But a spokesman for Cameron’s Downing Street office said Britain, which joined the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was not planning its own military intervention.

“I am extremely concerned by the appalling situation in Iraq and the desperate situation facing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,” Cameron said in a statement.

“And I utterly condemn the barbaric attacks being waged by ISIL (ISIS, now Islamic State) terrorists across the region.” He added: “I welcome President Obama’s decision to accept the Iraqi government’s request for help and to conduct targeted US airstrikes, if necessary, to help Iraqi forces as they fight back against ISIL terrorists to free the civilians trapped on Mount Sinjar.

“And I fully agree with the president that we should stand up for the values we believe in -- the right to freedom and dignity, whatever your religious beliefs.” However, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We are not planning a military intervention.”

Obama, who rose to political prominence as an outspoken critic of his predecessor George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he was not sending back ground forces.

“As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.

“And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there is no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq,” he said

American combat troops would not be returning to Iraq. The only military answer “on the ground”, he said, would have to be provided by Iraq’s government itself.

“We will pursue a strategy which empowers Iraqis,” he said.

“Theres no decision I take more seriously than the use of military force ... we have other tools, we can lead with the power of our diplomacy.”

Armed and ready ... US Navy F/A-18C Hornets parked aboard a US aircraft carrier. The US has stationed in the Persian Gulf an aircraft carrier, Navy ships armed with missiles and a detachment of 1000 Marines. Source: AP Source: AP

COMBAT CAPABILITY

US military sources state that missions have been flown by US Navy F-18 Hornet strike aircraft, US Air Force B-1 bombers and Predator drones over Iraq now for several weeks.

While previously limited to surveillance missions, the aircraft will now likely be armed.

Islamic State fighters do have shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other short-range anti-aircraft artillery, but strike aircraft only rarely fly low enough to be within their reach.

Most of the US firepower is centred on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George HW Bush and the cruiser and four destroyers in her escort. Also in company are a helicopter-carrying amphibious assault ship and a dock landing ship carrying up to 1000 Marines.

The Australian frigate HMAS Darwin is stationed just outside the Persian Gulf, in the Arabian Sea.

AIR MERCY MISSION

An emergency rescue mission is underway to feed up to 40,000 Iraqi refugees sent scurrying into remote mountains under threat of mass execution in the latest round of ethnic cleansing by Islamic jihadists.

The Iraqi ethnic Christian and Yazidis minorities have been the target of recent Islamic militant advances in the north of the troubled state, with many fleeing to mountaintops for refuge after being given the ultimatum: Convert or die.

Supply drop ... US airforce transport aircraft this morning delivered by air stocks of food and water for terrified Yazidi sect members hiding in mountains in the north of Iraq. Source: AFP Source: AFP

They are now reportedly running short of food and water, with all major paths and roads in and out of the region blocked.

Recent attempts by the Iraqi air force and Kurd Peshmurga troops to break the siege have failed.

In response, President Obama has this morning authorised humanitarian air drops in northern Iraq to ease the crisis.

Officials say relief aircraft were “already in the air” when the announcement was made.

The Pentagon said the airdrops were performed by one C-17 and two C-130 cargo aircraft that together delivered a total of 72 bundles of food and water. They were escorted by two F/A-18 fighters from an undisclosed air base in the region.

The planes delivered 20,000 litres of fresh drinking water and 8000 pre-packaged meals and were over the drop area for less than 15 minutes at a low altitude.

US military trainers stationed in the north of Iraq and are themselves threatened by the Islamic State ”caliphate”, whose fighters have recently made gains toward the Kurdish capital city of Erbil.

The US has a diplomatic consulate in Erbil as well as a military operations centre that was set up there recently to advise and assist the Iraqi military in that region.

Blockade ... Islamic State group militants and Tribal fighters take control of a checkpoint that used to be controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, as people leave a village outside Irbil, northern Iraq. Source: AP Source: AP

MILITANTS OVER — RUN RESISTANCE

In recent days, the Islamic State militants have swept through villages in the north that are home to religious minorities including a few thousand remaining Christians and up to 700,000 Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion with ties to one of the world’s oldest religions — Zoroastrianism. Furthering their gains, the extremists seized Iraq’s largest dam overnight, placing them in control of enormous power and water resources and access to the river that runs through the heart of Baghdad.

Fears are the jihadists will now alter the flow or foul the water — directly affecting up to 500,000 people.

The Islamic militants are reportedly using large numbers of captured US-supplied armoured vehicles in fast-moving sweeps through Iraqi government territory.

The northern town of Sinjar — one of the main centres of population for the Yazidi minority group — was stormed at the weekend. Up to 40,000 residents have fled to the nearby mountains for safety where they are now surrounded.

Fleeing tyranny ... An Iraqi Yazidi family that fled the violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, sit at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk. Source: AFP Source: AFP

They are now trapped in the summer heat without food, water or medical supplies. Dozens have already reportedly died.

While initially able to remain in contact with the outside world via mobile phone, their batteries have long since fbeen drained. Little word has come out of the area of their current condition.

Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, also fell to Islamic militants yesterday.

The 50,000 residents were given the same ultimatum Christians were issued with in the city of Mosul last week: “Leave, convert or die”.

Tens of thousands have since fled, almost emptying the region of members of the 1800-year-old sect.

On the run ... Displaced Iraqi Christians settle at St. Joseph Church in Irbil, northern Iraq, yesterday after fleeing Islamic State threats of “convert or die”. Source: AP Source: AP

RESCUE MISSION RATIONALE

While the White House did not publicly outline the range of military options under consideration, officials said the US strongly condemns the extremists’ assault on minorities.

“The situation is nearing a humanitarian catastrophe,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “We are gravely concerned for their health and safety.”

President Barack Obama met with his national security team this morning to discuss the crisis as the Islamic State caliphate continued to make gains.

Obama used the threat of an imminent humanitarian crisis as justification for limited US military action in Libya in 2010, as forces loyal to Muammar al-Gaddafi threatened a massacre in Benghazi. The US and NATO partners launched a bombing campaign over Libya, with Obama moving forward without congressional approval.

Obama Authorizes Targeted U.S. Airstrikes Against Islamists in Iraq
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsDebkafile
Categories: One World Church;Contemporary Issues

MK Lavie: Toppling Hamas Isn't the Answer
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) on Friday related to the renewed rocket fire on Israel, saying that Israel must not cave in to Hamas's desire to drag it into war.

"The missile barrages that resumed this morning raise once again the instinctive desire to solve the whole problem by way of a ground incursion and toppling Hamas. We must not do so," she said, adding, "We have to be patient, and view the current campaign as another round in the persistent fight we have been holding for over a hundred years over the right to live in our country. We must be released from the impatient thinking that there is a solution of the quick fix."

Magnitude - 4.5 Quake Strikes Hawaii and Two Hurricanes Bearing Down on the Big Island
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Vancouver Sun
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Hawaii’s Big Island got whacked with another natural disaster on Thursday as a 4.5 magnitude earthquake struck before the first of two hurricanes swirling toward the islands was scheduled to hit.

Though the earthquake didn’t cause major damage, it struck as residents were waking up to make last-minute trips to grocery stores and boarding up their homes ahead of the first hurricane set to hit the Hawaiian islands in more than two decades.

We have a hurricane. Now we have this on top of it. What else?

Kelsey Walker said the quake felt like a “little jolt” but didn’t knock things off shelves at the Waimea grocery store where he works. He was trying to keep a sense of humour about it.

“We have a hurricane. Now we have this on top of it. What else?” said Walker, second assistant manager at Foodland Waimea.

Iselle was supposed to weaken as it slowly trudged west across the Pacific. It didn’t – and now Hawaii is poised to take its first direct hurricane hit in 22 years. Tracking close behind it was Hurricane Julio, which strengthened early Thursday into a Category 2 storm.

“Iselle is on the collision course with Hawaii and is slated to cross over the Big Island,” David Streit, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland, said by e-mail Thursday. “The storm will produce locally heavy rains and flash flooding” before clearing out in two days.

As the two hurricanes churned toward the islands, the quake hit at 6:30 a.m. local time, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The temblor struck on the island’s north tip, about 11 kilometres from Waimea. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Cantin said that means stronger winds of 95 to 115 km/h, though rainfall estimates of 12 cm to 20 cm in a short time frame remained unchanged.

“Not a major hurricane, but definitely enough to blow things around,” he said.

Iselle loomed about 650 km east of Hilo early Thursday, with sustained winds of 135 km/h and traveling about 29 km/h.

Cantin said the Big Island’s size and terrain would help break up the hurricane, weakening it into a tropical storm as it passes Maui and Oahu late Thursday and early Friday.

Hurricane Julio, meanwhile, swirled closely behind with maximum winds whipping at about 170 km/h. The National Hurricane Centre said it expected the storm to strengthen even more Thursday before gradually weakening by Thursday night. That weakening is expected to continue into the weekend.

Hawaii has been directly hit by hurricanes only three times since 1950, though the region has had 147 tropical cyclones over that time. The last time Hawaii was hit with a tropical storm or hurricane was in 1992, when Hurricane Iniki killed six people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes in Kauai, said meteorologist Eric Lau.

The two hurricanes have disrupted tourism, prompted flash flood warnings and led to school closures. Gov. Neil Abercrombie, meanwhile, signed an emergency proclamation allowing officials to tap into a disaster fund set aside by the state Legislature.

Hawaiian Airlines waived reservation change fees and fare differences for passengers who needed to alter travel plans Thursday and Friday because of the storms. Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said hundreds of inquires poured in from customers seeking to change their flights.

Some travellers remained hopeful.

Boston resident Jonathan Yorke and his wife booked a Hawaii vacation with their two daughters last year. He has been watching the news to see how the storms could affect the two-week trip to Maui and the Big Island.

“We’re all optimists, so we’ll make the best of it,” Yorke said.

We’re all optimists, so we’ll make the best of it

Washington state couple Tracy Black and Chris Kreifels made plans to get married in an outdoor ceremony on the Big Island Saturday. They spent Wednesday getting a marriage license, adjusting plans and communicating with worried guests on the mainland.

“We see the rain as a blessing,” Black said. “It will work out as it’s supposed to.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what financial impact the storms would have on the state’s tourism industry, a key economic driver.

Hawaii residents also have had to adjust. Stores have seen long lines this week as people brace themselves.

Some are voting early in primary elections that close Saturday. The elections include several marquee races, including congressional and gubernatorial races. Abercrombie – who is running for re-election in a tight Democratic primary – said the election is expected to move forward as planned as of Wednesday afternoon.

Also, education officials said public schools on the Big Island, Maui, Molokai and Lanai will be closed Thursday.

The storms are rare but not unexpected in years with a developing El Nino, a change in ocean temperature that affects weather around the world.

Ahead of this year’s hurricane season, weather officials warned that the wide swath of the Pacific Ocean that includes Hawaii could see four to seven tropical cyclones this year.

This is what Associated Press reporters on the scene are learning as the first hurricane in 22 years bears down on Hawaii:

9:05 a.m. HST

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has tweeted that the city is opening emergency shelters Thursday night and city bus service on Friday is canceled.

8:48 a.m. HST

The American Red Cross is pleading for the return of its only emergency truck on the Big Island. Hawaii chapter CEO Coralie Matayoshi says the white Ford F-150 truck bearing Red Cross markings was stolen in Hilo Wednesday night. The organization will have to borrow or rent a truck as Hurricane Iselle approaches the island.

8:05 a.m. HST

At the White House, President Barack Obama was briefed by his homeland security adviser on preparations for the storms that are threatening his birthplace. Spokesman Josh Earnest said administration officials will remain in close contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies that are that are preparing to help with response and recovery efforts as the storms near.

7:45 a.m. HST

Hawaii has been directly hit by hurricanes only three times since 1950, though the region has had 147 tropical cyclones over that time. Meteorologist Eric Lau said the last time Hawaii was hit with a tropical storm or hurricane was in 1992, when Hurricane Iniki killed six people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes in Kauai, said meteorologist Eric Lau.

7:20 a.m. HST

Hurricane Iselle was supposed to weaken as it slowly trudged west across the Pacific. It didn’t – and now Hawaii is poised to take its first direct hurricane hit in 22 years. Iselle is on course to hit the Big Island tonight, and is being tailed by Hurricane Julio, which strengthened early today into a Category 2 storm.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey reports a magnitude 4.5 earthquake has rattled Hawaii’s Big Island. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Let the Headlines Speak
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Islamism = Nazism. Any Questions?
With the almost sole exception of Russian expansionism in the Crimea and Ukraine, the world's large-scale violence is traceable to one clearly identifiable source. Whether it's Hamas firing rockets at Israel, Boko Haram enslaving, raping, and killing Christian girls, genocide of Christians in the Sudan, or ISIS conducting mass executions in Syria and Iraq, fundamentalist Islam is the root cause.  

ISIS Threatens America: ‘We Will Raise The Flag Of Allah In The White House’
The terror group President Barack Obama threatened to strike in Iraq Thursday evening is itself threatening to strike the American homeland.  

Hamas Executes One of Its Leaders - Then Blames Israel
Sources in the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that Taha was executed because Hamas feared he might implicate some of its leaders in many corruption = scandals. "The man knew too much abut the senior leaders of Hamas." The international media, for its part, will simply endorse the Hamas story = because it is more convenient to blame Israel than to get into trouble with = a radical Islamist movement that carries out extra-judicial executions.  

Former Shin Bet Head: Israel Should Learn Lesson of HiroshimaTo End Gaza Wars
Of course, he is not suggesting that Israel follow the American actions exactly, but, as The Times of Israel reports, Dichter wrote on his Facebook page: “Today, 69 years ago exactly, the American leadership understood that there is no other way to end the bloody war against Japan, but with one action: dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. No, there was no phone call made in advance to the residents of the city warning them about the imminent catastrophe.  

Russian nuclear-capable bombers 'tested' US air defenses 16 times in last 10 days
“Over the past week, NORAD has visually identified Russian aircraft operating in and around the US air defense identification zones,” said Maj. Beth Smith, spokeswoman for US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).  

W.H.O. Declares Ebola in West Africa a Health Emergency
Facing the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus, with almost 1,000 fatalities in West Africa, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency on Friday, demanding an “extraordinary” response — only the third such declaration of its kind since regulations permitting such alarms were adopted in 2007.  

Mysterious Noises Coming From Volcano
Strange rumblings coming from the tuya Herðubreið are confounding observers as to their possible source. Avalanches have been reported from mountains all over Iceland recently, which is highly unusual for the summer months.  

PERSEID FIREBALLS
he full Moon of August 10th is no ordinary full Moon--it's a supermoon, the biggest and brightest of 2014.  

Yellowstone Volcano Eruption? USGS Records 99 Earthquakes In July Of 2014
This region has apparently been shaking a lot lately since half of July’s seismic activity occurred on July 6 and 7 and is a result of the ongoing north-south trending series of earthquakes, which began in September, 2013. Still, there is a good amount of shaking going on since 99 earthquakes were recorded in all.  

A 4.6-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Costa Rica
An earthquake of 4,6 magnitude shook today the central area of Costa Rica, without material and human damage reported, according to the National Logic Network.  

Antisemitism on rise across Europe 'in worst times since the Nazis'
...Across Europe, the conflict in Gaza is breathing new life into some very old, and very ugly, demons. ..."These are the worst times since the Nazi era," Dieter Graumann, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, told the Guardian. "On the streets, you hear things like 'the Jews should be gassed', 'the Jews should be burned' – we haven't had that in Germany for decades.  

Big Island residents awaken to magnitude-4.5 earthquake
Big Island residents woke up to a magnitude-4.5 earthquake that struck shortly before 6:30 a.m. Thursday near Kawaihae in South Kohala.  

Hurricane Iselle closes in on Hawaii
Rain began falling on the Big Island Thursday afternoon and the winds began to pick up as Hurricane Iselle zeroed in on Hawaii.  

Russian bombers penetrated U.S. airspace at least 16 times in past 10 days
Russian strategic nuclear bombers conducted at least 16 incursions into northwestern U.S. air defense identification zones over the past 10 days...according to U.S. defense officials. The numerous flight encounters by Tu-95 Russian Bear H bombers prompted the scrambling of U.S. jet fighters on several occasions, and come amid heightened U.S.-Russia tensions over Ukraine.  

Ebola's spread to US is 'inevitable' says CDC chief
Ebola's spread to the United States is "inevitable" due to the nature of global airline travel, but any outbreak is not likely to be large, US health authorities said Thursday. Already one man with dual US-Liberian citizenship has died from Ebola, after becoming sick on a plane from Monrovia to Lagos and exposing as many as seven other people in Nigeria.  

Ukraine crisis: Military losses climb in war for east
Government forces in eastern Ukraine have lost 15 soldiers within a day as they push against pro-Russian rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Fifteen were killed and 79 injured on Thursday, the government said, two days after 18 were killed - the highest daily death toll reported in weeks. Government forces have been accused of bombarding residential areas from the ground and the air, killing civilians.  

Hurricane Iselle to hit Hawaii on Thursday
Hawaiians are bracing for a rare direct tropical cyclone hit as Hurricane Iselle threatens the US island chain. The hurricane is 195 miles (315km) east of Hilo and is expected to make landfall on Thursday afternoon. Iselle has maximum sustained winds of 75mph (121 km/h), but the storm is expected to weaken overnight as it passes over the state's Big Island.  

IAF jets strike terrorist targets in Gaza following renewed rocket fire
The IDF renewed strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip shortly before 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning. The strikes come as retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel which broke the relative quiet of a three-day truce after it expired earlier on Friday morning.  

Obama authorizes airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic State
President Obama on Thursday authorized airstrikes against Islamist terrorists in Iraq and approved a humanitarian mission to deliver food and other supplies to tens of thousands of Iraqis trapped on mountaintops, moves that represent the most significant re-engagement in Iraq since formal combat operations ended three years ago.  

Iraq’s largest Christian city falls to ISIL; Kurdish forces retreat from Qaraqosh
Sunni radicals with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have now taken control of Iraq’s largest Christian city. Kurdish forces, which have served as a last line of defense against the Islamic terrorist group, retreated Thursday from Qaraqosh.  

China Establishes New 'Christian Theology' To Control Its Christian Population
In a country known for quixotic public campaigns, China’s latest surely ranks among its most creative. The government will create a “Chinese Christian Theology” to guide the practice of Christianity in the country.  

Hamas rejects disarmament proposal
With a deadline looming hours away, Hamas on Thursday rejected Israeli demands it disarm and threatened to resume its rocket attacks if its demands for lifting a crippling blockade on Gaza were not met.  

Border Patrol Agent: Federal Government Releasing Murderers Into U.S.
A Border Patrol agent claims that the federal government is allowing murderers from Central America to be released into the U.S. Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, agent Chris Cabrera stated that these teenage gang members crossing the border are being released to family members in the U.S.  

NASA Climate Scientist Explains 15-Year ‘Global Warming Hiatus’
A NASA scientist described a recent “global warming hiatus” that shows Earth’s surface temperatures warming at a slower rate than previous decades – but it is still warming.  

Latin America Turns Against Israel on Gaza
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsDW
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Throughout Latin America, criticism of Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip is on the rise. Nations with a colonial history of their own regard Israel as an occupying power.

In Latin America, Brazil is on the forefront of politics critical of Israel.

After Brazil recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations in July, several other countries in the region quickly followed suit: Chile, Peru, El Salvador, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

"Almost all countries in Latin America follow Brazil's position," says Salem Hikmat Nasser, an expert on international law at Brazil's:link:http://portal.fgv.br/en# Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) University.# "They see the war in Gaza as the Palestinians' national struggle toward liberation in the face of a colonial occupying power."

Latin America's own colonial history is a common denominator in the region's critical attitude toward Israel. At the Mercosur summit last month in Caracas, the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay urgently demanded an "investigation of all violations of international humanitarian law and crimes in the Gaza Strip, and the identification of those responsible."

Appeal to Security Council

Following the second bombing of UN quarters in Gaza, Argentina, too, reacted. "Buenos Aires regards the Israeli military attacks on a United Nations school to be a criminal act that must be investigated in order to bring those responsible to court," a Foreign Ministry statement said on August 3, adding that the Security Council must intervene.

Mercosur leaders condemned the Israeli offensive in Gaza

Brazil's increasingly critical position toward Israel is the result of a change of tack in foreign policy strategies during Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's presidency. Contrary to previous Israel-friendly Brazilian governments, Lula da Silva focused on closer political ties to the Arab world during his 2003- 2010 term.

On December 1, 2010 Brazil officially recognized Palestine as a state. Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru and Uruguay quickly followed suit, long after Cuba, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic had already taken similar steps.

"Brazil always signaled a special bond with Israel, and it didn't want to violate the country's interests," Nasser says, arguing that this position changed under President Lula. His successor Dilma Rousseff continued Lula's course. Last month, Brazil supported a resolution critical of Israel by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

"Diplomatic dwarf"

Brazil's Foreign Ministry also condemned "Israel's disproportionate use of violence in the Gaza Strip," and summoned the Israeli ambassador in the capital Brasilia. At the same time, Brazil's ambassador to Israel was recalled for consultations. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor subsequently referred to Brazil as a "diplomatic dwarf," and dismissed Brazilian diplomacy as simply "irrelevant."

Brazilian sociologist Demetrio Magnoli of Sao Paulo University is one of the few who agree with the critical voices from Israel. "Brazil turned into a diplomatic dwarf when Lula introduced his new foreign policies 11 years ago," the well-known critic and foreign policy expert told the national media.

For ex-President Lula, the ideological interests of Brazil's PT Workers' Party came first. As a result, Brazilian foreign policies were not consistent, Magnoli argues, pointing out that the government "remained silent in the face of human rights abuse in Cuba, Venezuela and Russia, but criticized the disproportionate use of violence in Gaza."

Technology "Made in Israel"

Despite the current political ice age between Israel and South America, trade ties are strong thanks to the Mercosur bloc's freed trade agreement with Israel. Trade between Brazil and Israel in particular is on the rise. From 2003 to 2013, exports to Israel increased from $187 million (139.9 million euros) to $454 million annually, the Brazilian Trade Ministry reports.

At the same time, imports from Israel increased from $318 million to $1.1 billion. Brazil mainly exports food to Israel, and mainly imports technology and military goods.

Be that as it may, Israel has lost the battle for the Latin American public's favorable opinion, Salem Nasser says. "It's time for Brazil to take a stronger stance, even if the Jewish community in the country is well-organized," he says. "Brazil is anything but a diplomatic dwarf."

Impasse in Israel - Hamas Cairo Talks Amid Ceasefire Concern
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsDebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The Cairo talks deadlocked Thursday after Hamas and Jihad Islami flatly rejected all the proposals brought by Israel and Egypt.  They also refused to discuss extending the 72-hour ceasefire which expires Friday at 8 a.m. unless Israel and Egypt give ground on terms. The mood in Jerusalem has changed from the optimistic judgment that the war is over to a decision to seriously treat the threatened resumption of Palestinian attacks.

IBM's New Brain - Mimicking Chip Could Power the Internet of Things
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsPCWorld
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

IBM has taken another step toward its ambitious goal of creating a processor that acts like a human brain, creating a second, more advanced chip that mimics the way the mammalian brain operates.

“It’s a new landmark of the brain-inspired computers,” said Dharmendra Modha, IBM Research fellow and chief scientist focusing on brain-inspired computing.

Researchers from Cornell Tech helped design this chip as well. The researchers describe the chip in this week’s issue of the Science journal. “Our architecture is designed to approximate the structure and function of the brain in silicon, while being efficient in terms of power,” Modha said.

Once commercialized, such a chip could act as a low-power sensor for a range of embedded and portable devices. “It could become the silicon brain for the ‘Internet of things,’” Modha said. “It could transform the mobile experience as we know it.”

The processor could also be planted in large supercomputers to boost the speed of machine learning and other neural network-based computations.

This is the second such brain-inspired chip that Modha’s team at IBM has created—the first one was made in 2011.

The IBM "TrueNorth" chip is designed for low power consumption, shown in this thermal image that shows the cool TrueNorth chip alongside hot FPGA chips that are feeding data to TrueNorth.

The new processor, code-named “TrueNorth,” has 5.4 billion transistors woven into an on-chip network of 4,096 neurosynaptic cores, producing the equivalent of 256 million synapses, much larger than the 2011 design of roughly 260,000 synapses.

IBM has also tethered 16 of these chips together in four four-by-four arrays, which collectively offer the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses, showing that the design can be easily scaled up for larger implementations.

The work originated in 2008 as a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project, under the project name of Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE).

The chips represent a radical break in design from today’s von Neumann architecture of computing, where computations are quickly made in a serial fashion.

This chip architecture approximated how the human brain works, in that each “neurosynaptic core” has its own memory (“synapses”), a processor (“neuron”) and communication conduit (“axons”), which all operate together in an event-driven fashion.

By working together, these cores could provide nuanced pattern recognition and other sensing capabilities, in much the same way a brain does.

Like the brain, this chip requires very little power—only 70mW during typical operation, which is an order of magnitude lower than what standard processors would require to execute the same operations. Samsung fabricated the prototype chip using a 28-nanometer lithographic process.

Requiring so little power—less than that required by a hearing aid—opens up a vast array of potential uses, especially on devices with limited power sources.

For instance, a processor could be embedded in a mobile device or a sensor, where it could be trained to do object recognition on auditory, visual or multi-sensory data sources, a computationally intensive task that now requires a dedicated server. Such jobs could easily be done on a remote device itself, eliminating the need to stream video to a data center.

“The sensor becomes the computer,” Modha said.

The brain-inspired architecture is not designed to replace standard processors, but rather be used in conjunction with them, to tackle jobs that require lots of computation operations to be carried out in parallel.

In the data center, the chips could be used in co-processor acceleration cards for running machine-learning neural networks, Modha said. Many machine learning algorithms now being commercially used could be easily adapted to this architecture, which could carry out highly parallel operations in a more energy-efficient manner, Modha said.

IBM is still investigating how to commercialize this processor, Modha said, and has made no commitments to either manufacture the chip itself or license the design out to others. Modha said that, from early fabrication work, he saw no “fundamental risks” in producing these chips in large volumes.

The company is also developing compilers and related software to make these processors easy to use.

Hamas Marks Rift With Cairo By Executing An Alleged Egyptian Spy
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsDebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Former Hamas Spokesman Found Dead in Gaza City
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Hamas terrorist in Gaza (file)

Reuters

Ayman Taha, a former spokesman for Hamas was found dead Thursday in Gaza City, but there were conflicting reports as to the cause of his death.

According to AFP, Hamas said Taha’s body was found in a neighborhood of the city that was heavily bombed by Israel and accused the Jewish state of being responsible for his death.

Taha was killed when Israeli forces "targeted him in the apartment where he was with several others in Gaza City" in the Shejaiya neighborhood, the group claimed in a statement quoted by the news agency.

He was severely wounded and died later, the statement said.

Some Arab media outlets, however, reported that Taha was executed by Hamas over charges of spying for Egypt.

Taha, the son of one of the group's founders, was a well known spokesman for Hamas before his arrest in February.

Hamas's security apparatus detained him as part of an investigation into the possible "abuse of funds" and other allegations.

If Taha was indeed executed by Hamas over spying or collaboration charges, that would not be a first for Hamas.

In fact, a security official in Gaza confirmed earlier on Thursday that "resistance groups" in Gaza executed tens of Palestinian Arabs deemed as alleged "informants" to Israel during Operation Protective Edge.

According to Palestinian Arab sources, during the war took Hamas members executed more than 30 Gazans, most of them in Sheijaiya.

Hamas regularly executes people who are found guilty of spying, despite condemnations from the international community over this practice.

Ebola Outbreak Puts U.S. CDC on High Alert
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsCBC News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Tom Frieden testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday on combating Ebola. (Molly Riley/Associated Press)

The current Ebola crisis in West Africa is on pace to sicken more people than all other previous outbreaks of the disease combined, the health official leading the U.S. response said Thursday.

The next few weeks will be critical, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is sending more workers into the affected countries to help.

"It will be a long and hard fight," Frieden told a congressional committee Thursday.

In his prepared testimony, he estimated it would take at least three to six months to end the outbreak, under what he called a best-case scenario.

Frieden said the outbreak, which began in March, is unprecedented in part because it's in a region of Africa that never has dealt with Ebola before and has particularly weak health systems. He said the outbreak's two main drivers are lack of infection control as both health workers and families care for the sick and risky burial practices.

More than 1,700 people have been sickened in the current outbreak, in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Nearly 1,000 have died, according to the World Health Organization, or WHO.

On Thursday Frieden said there's no way to know exactly how accurate that count is, or whether some cases are going unreported.

"The data coming out is kind of a fog-of-war situation," he said.

A medical charity told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that the world was too slow to react to the crisis, until recent headlines about two American aid workers who became infected in Liberia and were flown to the U.S. for care.

"Ebola is out of control in West Africa, and we are starting to see panic now around the world," said Ken Isaacs, vice president at Samaritan's Purse.

FDA eyes Canadian Ebola treatment 

U.S. health authorities, meanwhile, eased safety restrictions on a Canadian-made experimental drug to treat Ebola.

Vancouver-based drugmaker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration modified a hold recently placed on the company's drug after safety issues emerged in human testing. The company has a $140 million contract with the U.S. government to develop its drug TKM-Ebola, which targets the genetic material of Ebola.

Last month the FDA had halted a small study of the injection in adults to request additional safety information.

Tekmira said Thursday the agency "verbally confirmed" changes to the hold that may allow the company to make the drug available, although it has yet to be proven as safe and effective.

Currently, there are no licensed drugs or vaccines for the deadly disease. Several are in various stages of development, but none have been rigorously tested in humans.

Two Americans diagnosed with Ebola recently received a different experimental drug called ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. of San Diego. It is aimed at boosting the immune system's efforts to fight off Ebola and is made from antibodies produced by lab animals exposed to parts of the virus.

CDC confident large outbreak won't occur on U.S. soil

The two American aid workers, who were flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, "seem to get a little better every day," Isaacs said.

Frieden didn't rule out the possibility that a traveller could arrive in the U.S. unknowingly infected with Ebola. But he said he is confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak here. The CDC has put hospitals on alert for symptoms and to check whether people are recent travellers so that they can promptly isolate any suspected cases until proper testing can be done.

Frieden said it is possible to stop the outbreak in West Africa using tried-and-true public health measures: find and isolate all possible patients, track down everyone they could have exposed, educate the public about risks and ensure health workers follow proper infection control. The virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick.

Any case missed or exposed person lost to follow-up could keep the outbreak going.

"If you leave behind even a single burning ember, it's like a forest fire," he said. "It flares back up."

Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse said that a huge problem will be persuading African communities to abandon the traditional practice of washing the body and kissing the corpse immediately after death, when the body is most infectious. He said aid workers have been attacked when trying to intervene, and that some physicians in Liberia even mocked the existence of the Ebola virus, shunning protection around patients.

African countries on high alert

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf declared a national state of emergency this week, and officials said Thursday that no one with a fever would be allowed in or out of the country. In the capital, there were reports of bodies abandoned in the streets. Relatives have been hiding feverish patients at home for fear that if they are brought to isolation centers and don't have Ebola, they will catch it.

Troops were deployed there and in Sierra Leone to stem movement of possibly infected people. According to the WHO, Liberia and Sierra Leone account for more than 60 percent of the deaths so far.

On Thursday, Frieden said Guinea was furthest along in responding to the outbreak although it is still spread there.

The World Bank Group on Monday pledged as much as $200 million US in emergency funding to fight the outbreak, including paying for urgently needed medical supplies, medical staff salaries and lab networks. On Thursday, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it was sending tens of thousands of protective suits for health care workers.

Biometrics: New IDs That are Uniquely You Forget Fingerprints: in the Near Future Eyebrows or Heart
Aug 8th, 2014
Daily NewsStudent Science
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Forget fingerprints: In the near future eyebrows or heartbeats may become your new IDs

On April 18, 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released blurry photos of two suspects at the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing. Marios Savvides and his team quickly tried to identify them.

Savvides works at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., as a scientist specializing in pattern recognition and signal processing. He creates special software that can identify people in digital images. As he and his fellow experts began sifting through the FBI pictures, they faced a challenge. Even the best picture of one of the suspects "was extremely low-resolution,” Savvides recalls. “It was blurred, off-angle and he was wearing a hat."

Still, the team worked through the night. Using their experimental face-recognition software, they enhanced the photo. In the morning, they sent it off to the FBI. By that time, law enforcement already had identified the two suspects. "Still, after the fact, we saw our reconstruction was pretty darn good," Savvides says.

Today, he is working to make the software even better. To do this, he and his team are using something called biometrics. It’s a relatively new field of technology, Savvides notes. The name explains it all: "Bio means life,” he says. “Metrics is about measuring." So biometrics measures features or characteristics — individually or in combination — that are unique to some person. No one else will share exactly the same features.

The four images at left show the same fingerprint. The images are all slightly different, depending on the wavelength of light reflecting back from the blood vessels below. Each image is combined to create an accurate fingerprint, shown at right.

Fingerprints probably represent the best-known example of a feature useful in biometrics. Others include the iris (the colored muscle in the eye) and the face. Biometrics engineers are looking to find still more. Any feature of the body with a unique shape, size, texture or pattern — and that can be read by biometric technologies — potentially can be used to identify someone.

Rapidly and accurately identifying people is useful. The police sometimes use biometric technology to ID criminals, disaster victims and missing children. Bank tellers may use biometrics to verify the identity of anyone attempting to withdraw money from an account. Because of the usefulness of biometric technology, governments are starting to include fingerprint and other biometric data in driver’s licenses, ID cards and passports.

Research on biometrics is advancing rapidly. Here we meet researchers behind three teams developing new ways to ID people. Their work is leading to the creation of electronic devices and security systems that one day may recognize us almost instantly and effortlessly.

Lego lessons

Savvides' specialty is facial biometrics. He creates step-by-step instructions, called algorithms, for a computer program to follow. The instructions tell the computer how to fill in the parts of a face that either don’t show up in a photo or are too low-quality and blurry to recognize.

"Let's say the face is made up of Lego blocks," says Savvides. "You can create an algorithm that knows which Lego blocks to use at what location.” For instance, the first line in a set of mathematical instructions written by Savvides might tell the program to place two small, dark green blocks in the center. They would represent the eyes. The second line might tell the computer to add 103 large light beige blocks in an oval pattern around the edge. These blocks would represent the outline of the head. The result will be the building plan for a simple biometric signature of the face.

Using a powerful computer, Savvides designed one algorithm that can enhance a small and blurry face. It automatically generates a larger and more detailed image. He taught the computer program to do this by having it compare thousands of matched pairs of faces. Each pair included one blurry image and one sharp image of the same face.

Now, when Savvides scans a new blurry face into his computer, his algorithm applies the lessons it had learned earlier from analyzing those thousands of matched pairs of photos. In short order, the program pops out a sharpened version of the once-blurry face.

Iris scanning from up to 11 meters (36 feet) is possible with a system being developed by Marios Savvides’ team. A camera system in the silver cylinder (left foreground) collects details within four seconds on the face and the iris in each eye (green box shows covered area). The eye’s iris is unique to each individual and does not change with age, making it a great ID.

The enhanced version may not be an exact likeness of the person in the photo. Still, it's usually close. Certainly, it can be close enough for police to use in comparing against clearer photos of possible suspects.

"We have a long way to go before we start trusting computers 100 percent," says Savvides. "We still want humans involved in making the final identification."

He has used the same compare-and-match technique to teach a computer to turn a two-dimensional photo of a face into a three-dimensional one. That means instead of seeing a face just from a single angle, law enforcement officials now can rotate and turn that head on a computer screen. This allows them to view the face from any angle — including the same angle as the face in some photo. Now the police can make a 2-D view of this rotated face and see if it matches the person in the original photo.

Savvides even has a strategy for taking into account how faces change as people age. Imagine the police are looking for a young man missing since childhood. The only photograph they have was taken when a boy was just 12. Now he is 25 — and police think they have spotted him in a recent photo.

Savvides' research shows that eyes and eyebrows stay the same over time, so he asks the computer to match just those features in the two pictures. Since the computer is not looking at the entire face, any match may not be foolproof. But it could narrow down the number of candidates.

And if the photos reveal a clear image of the iris, a computer will have even better luck in matching the man to his 12-year-old self. The colored muscle surrounding the pupil of the eye is much more detailed. It also is unique — and won’t have changed as the boy grew into a man.

In fact, the pattern of light reflected by the iris never changes. That is why its pattern forms the basis of some security locks. (The technology often shows up in movies and television programs.)

Putting your heart into it

Biometric programs that rely on facial features are among the most common ways to identify people. But Foteini Agrafioti and Karl Martin are developing a system that would work even if no part of the body were visible. You might say they are taking biometrics to heart. Their technology works by measuring a heart's electrical patterns.

Readings of the electrical signals given off by the hearts of three different people. The Nymi wristband includes sensors that read these patterned signals. Since your heart rhythms are as unique as you are, the wristband can use it as a biometric password.

In 2011, the two engineers created a wristband called Nymi (NEE-me) that measures the electrical signals created by its wearer’s heart. The signals match the rhythm of the heartbeat. And these are unique to each of us. That makes them useful as a sort of biometric password — the type that can allow someone to log onto a computer. No need to remember a complicated password that contains a string of letters, numbers and other symbols.

The engineers came up with the idea when they were getting their PhDs — Agrafioti in electrical and computer engineering, and Martin in engineering science — at the University of Toronto, in Ontario, Canada.

Their wristband includes sensors that read the electrical signal a heart gives off each time it beats. That reading is called an electrocardiogram, or ECG. It's the same test that hospitals use to monitor a patient's heart.

The ECG measures the shape of a heart's electrical signal. When your heart beats fast — such as after a run — the signal will constrict and repeat faster. But its shape stays the same.

When you sit down to work, the wristband can wirelessly transmit that shape to your computer. There, a computer program can compare the pattern to one previously stored on its hard drive. Only if the two match will the computer log you on. And you stay logged on until you take off the wristband — or walk away.

In 2011, Agrafioti and Martin founded a company in Toronto called Bionym to sell the wristbands. Sales should start late in 2014. The $79 wristbands are being designed for use with tablets, cell phones and computers.

In the future, the engineers hope their wristband will open all sorts of doors — literally — for wearers. One day it might allow homeowners to unlock the door to their house or their car. It even could be used to withdraw cash from an ATM.

The Nymi wristband has sensors that read the unique electrical signal your heart gives off each time it beats. That signal can let you to log onto your computer without having to type a password.

Martin says the goal is to create a single wearable item to replace all the smart cards, keys and passwords people now use. All of these tools allow us to let technology know who we are, Martin says. "It's not only easier, but also more interesting to create a single technology that a person can wear on their body” to replace all of those separate objects.

And finally, stealing the wristband would do a thief no good. That’s because it is someone’s heartbeat, not the wristband, that would actually unlock something.

‘Fingerprints’ from blood vessels

But using a heartbeat to identify someone is a relatively new form of biometrics. Fingerprints have a much longer history. Police have relied on them to help catch criminals for at least a century.

The ridges on our fingertips create unique patterns that don't change, even as we age. These ridges contain tiny pores through which we sweat. That means each time we touch something, we leave behind a little sweat in the pattern of that print.

When investigating a crime, police often look for fingerprints. Investigators can capture an image of a print by taking a picture of it. Or they can transfer a print to a piece of sticky tape. Later, if a fingerprint lifted from the scene of a crime matches one on file, police know that person was at the scene. Then they can start investigating whether that person might be the criminal.

Using fingerprints to identify someone has its limits. It can be hard to get a good print from people who have worn down the skin on their fingers after years of working with rough materials, such as brick or stone. It also can be hard to get good fingerprints from young children. Their ridges are just too tiny and narrow.

Rob Rowe has designed a hand-held fingerprint scanner that solves these problems. An optical physicist, Rowe studies light and how it interacts with things.

Light travels through the skin to the blood vessels below. The blood in them scatters and absorbs the light in different patterns, depending on its wavelength (color). The pattern of those blood vessels matches the fingerprint above them.

The scanner looks like a tall computer mouse with a finger-shaped pad on top. When someone places a finger on the pad, different colors of light illuminate it from below.

Each color (wavelength) of light travels harmlessly through the skin into the finger. The light travels all the way to the blood vessels. Those vessels scatter and absorb the light in different ways, depending on the wavelength of light that had been used.

As each wavelength of light bounces back to the scanner, it creates a pattern tracing out the blood vessels within the finger. The scanner then puts together all those separate images to produce a single, master pattern.

"It turns out blood vessels and other structures below the skin have the same shape as the fingerprint on the surface of the finger," says Rowe, who helped found a company to sell the scanners. So an image of those vessels is just as good as a fingerprint, if not better.

Beyond law enforcement

VaxTrac is an organization based in Washington, D.C. It works around the world to help poor and developing countries do a better job of vaccinating children. In 2013, it started using Rowe's fingerprint scanner in the West African country of Benin.

Health workers there have so far scanned the fingers of more than 20,000 children. The kids are not suspected of crimes. Instead, their prints reveal whether they already have received vaccines against life-threatening diseases.

The fingerprint scanner sends a message to a central computer. Inside the computer, a database contains information about what vaccines a child has received and when. The “username” for each medical file is the child’s fingerprint. Health officials tap into this file, using the fingerprint scanner, to accurately identify which children still need vaccinating — and which don’t.

"Without a record of a child's vaccination, we usually re-vaccinate them," says VaxTrac project manager Meredith Baker. "Using the scanner, we don't waste vaccine."

A health worker prepares to scan the finger of a Ugandan boy to find out if he has been vaccinated. The device reads the pattern of blood vessels underlying the arches, loops and whorls of the boy’s fingerprint. The technology uses that biometric information to determine whether children have already received life-saving vaccinations.

Using biometrics to keep kids healthy, log onto electronic devices and catch criminals are important applications. But all three teams already are looking to other uses. They want to refine their research for use in exciting new applications.

Savvides, for example, dreams of smart robots that do our bidding, before we even ask.

"We eventually want to use facial recognition in robots that can identify who you are. How cool would it be to have a robot that could say, ‘Hi Marios, how are you doing today?’” It also would know your every preference. After recognizing you, a robot butler could let you into your house, adjust the air temperature and put on your favorite music.

"That's how I see biometrics being used in the future," he says. "It may seem far away. But some day it will happen."