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N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images – NYTimes.com

June 1, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Edward Snowden, NSA, peter singhateh, USA Leave a comment

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images – NYTimes.com.

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.

The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden…

Gambia may get first pilot school – Daily Observer

June 1, 2014

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Aviation, Flying, Gambia, peter singhateh, Pilot Leave a comment

Gambia may get first pilot school – Daily Observer.

If the words of the latest investors from the Trans-continental nation of Turkey are anything to go by, The Gambia may be on the way toward getting its first ever pilot school.

This was disclosed by the chairman of the OmniTek Company, who is leading a team of investors from his company to explore possibilities of extending to The Gambia.

“We are also representing Airport Traffic Management System and we will be setting up training educational centers for airport traffic controllers and pilots. So this will make The Gambia benefit from these services and all the neighboring countries to be trained in The Gambia,” he disclosed.

If successfully put in place, he noted, people from all over Africa and even Europe would be attracted to come to The Gambia to undergo these trainings. ..

400 migrants break through border fence in Spains African enclave Melilla | World news | theguardian.com

May 29, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, Gambia, Immigration, Migrants, People & Society, peter singhateh Leave a comment

400 migrants break through border fence in Spains African enclave Melilla | World news | theguardian.com.

More than 1,000 sub-Saharan migrants rushed the six-metre razor-wire fence that marks the border of Spain‘s North African enclave of Melilla early on Wednesday morning, with some 400 managing to make it over the towering fence, yelling with joy as they touched Spanish soil.

“There were waves [of people], they were quite difficult to stop,” Juan José Imbroda, the mayor of Melilla, said in a radio interview. Despite efforts by Moroccan and Spanish police to push back the migrants, he said the pressure was so great that “a chunk of the exterior fence gave way”.

On entering Melilla, the jubilant migrants kissed the ground and congratulated each other on making it to Europe. Many of them had spent years travelling across north and sub-Saharan Africa followed by months of living in rough, makeshift campgrounds on the Moroccan side of the border, waiting for an opportune moment to rush the frontier…

Michelle Obama on Attempts to Roll Back Healthy Reforms – NYTimes.com

May 29, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Health, obesity, peter singhateh, Research Leave a comment

Michelle Obama on Attempts to Roll Back Healthy Reforms – NYTimes.com.

WHEN we began our Let’s Move! initiative four years ago, we set one simple but ambitious goal: to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation so that kids born today will grow up healthy.

To achieve this goal, we have adhered to one clear standard: what works. The initiatives we undertake are evidence-based, and we rely on the most current science. Research indicated that kids needed less sugar, salt and fat in their diets, so we revamped school lunch menus accordingly. When data showed that the lack of nearby grocery stores negatively affected people’s eating habits, we worked to get more fresh-food retailers into underserved areas. Studies on habit formation in young children drove our efforts to get healthier food and more physical activity into child care centers.

Today, we are seeing glimmers of progress. Tens of millions of kids are getting better nutrition in school; families are thinking more carefully about food they eat, cook and buy…

Tesco to no longer stock sweets at checkouts – Health News | Irish Medical News | The Irish Times – Wed, May 21, 2014

May 22, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Health, Ireland, obesity, peter singhateh Leave a comment

Tesco to no longer stock sweets at checkouts – Health News | Irish Medical News | The Irish Times – Wed, May 21, 2014.

Tesco stores around the country will no longer stock sweets and chocolates at checkouts from tomorrow.

The change will be fully implemented by the end of the year across all 146 stores.

Tesco Ireland chief executive Phil J Clarke said customers had “made it clear to us that removing sweets and chocolates from checkouts will help them to make healthier choices”.

Obesity expert Dr Eva Orsmond said: “Irish supermarkets have a clear role to play in helping parents and shoppers to make healthier choices for their families”…

8 Facts about Chinas Investments in Africa | Brookings Institution

May 21, 2014

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Africa, China, Development, Gambia, peter singhateh Leave a comment

8 Facts about Chinas Investments in Africa | Brookings Institution.

“Considering the low priority of Africa in China’s overall foreign strategic mapping, a disproportionate level of international attention, publicity and scrutiny is paid to China’s Africa engagement,” writes Yun Sun, in a recent John L. Thornton China Center/Africa Growth Initiative paper, “Africa in China’s Foreign Policy.”

Below are selected data from her paper. Download it to read her thorough analysis of China’s interests in Africa and how China’s internal bureaucracy makes political, economic and security decisions regarding Africa policy.

By the end of 2009, 45.7 percent of China’s cumulative foreign aid of ¥256.29 billion had been given to countries in Africa.

China is Africa’s largest trading partner, surpassing the United States in 2009..

Always Hungry? Here’s Why – NYTimes.com

May 16, 2014

Peter Singhatey Health Education, obesity, People & Society, peter singhateh, Research 1 Comment

Always Hungry? Here’s Why – NYTimes.com.

FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored. Surrounded by tempting foods, we overeat, consuming more calories than we can burn off, and the excess is deposited as fat. The simple solution is to exert willpower and eat less.

The problem is that this advice doesn’t work, at least not for most people over the long term. In other words, your New Year’s resolution to lose weight probably won’t last through the spring, let alone affect how you look in a swimsuit in July. More of us than ever are obese, despite an incessant focus on calorie balance by the government, nutrition organizations and the food industry.

But what if we’ve confused cause and effect? What if it’s not overeating that causes us to get fat, but the process of getting fatter that causes us to overeat?

The more calories we lock away in fat tissue, the fewer there are circulating in the bloodstream to satisfy the body’s requirements. If we look at it this way, it’s a distribution problem: We have an abundance of calories, but they’re in the wrong place. As a result, the body needs to increase its intake. We get hungrier because we’re getting fatter.

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa

May 14, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Conflict, Gambia, peter singhateh, Transnational Crime Leave a comment

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa.

West Africa is a highly complex region caught between affluence and affliction. The region is made up of 16 states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Apart from Mauritania, the remaining states are members of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formed in 1975. The region’s states vary in territorial size, colonial history, economic strength, internal cohesion, and external linkages. They also differ in terms of population size, levels of development, stages of state building, and nature of resource endowments. They are confronted with different levels of security, governance and development challenges that have made them poor despite being greatly endowed with natural resources.

Although West African states gained political independence before any other region in colonial Africa, they have failed to achieve a high degree of political stability due to corruption, weak or failed governance institutions, conflicts and porous borders among others. Overall, they all share a common feature of multiple layers of insecurity, associated with conflicts and crime at community and national levels, often across borders and with regional ramifications. Threats like terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal oil bunkering, piracy, and arms trafficking have acquired worrisome transnational dimension in recent times. Consequently, terrorism and TOC have emerged as formidable threats to human security and is now taking on a singular importance in terms of national, regional and international engagements…