ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Syrian conflict continued to morph into a full-blown regional sectarian struggle (see our new report). President Bashar Assad’s forces recaptured the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border with the backing of Hizbollah fighters, whose open support for the regime is mobilising Sunnis across the region. An unprecedented conference in Cairo brought together some of the most prominent, and usually divided, Sunni religious opinion leaders in a joint appeal for jihad against the regime. Their call was endorsed by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Meanwhile Iraqi Shiite militia are reportedly streaming into Syria in ever greater numbers. As both regime and opposition forces take on increasingly overt confessional stances, the massacre of Shiites in the eastern village of Hatla, reportedly carried out by opposition armed groups, further inflamed the atmosphere. UN/Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi reported that a planned peace conference in Geneva is unlikely to take place before August

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Tanzania as the last stop of his African tour, underscores a silent competition with China to tap the country’s growing economic potential. It’s always a hard day’s work at the Kivukoni fish market in Dar es Salaam.  This place was once the center of business and trade in the city by the sea.  But that has all changed.  Tanzania’s economy has a 7% growth rate and the country is quickly developing.  Competition to get into the market is heating up. Chinese companies are already at the forefront, leading construction of buildings and infrastructure. But the United States is also looking for a stronger foothold, a priority emphasized by U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the country. Lead economist for the World Bank in Tanzania Jacques Moriset says the competition can be a good thing. “In my view, it’s a benefit, it’s a huge opportunity for Tanzania, I mean I strongly believe in the basic principle of economy: com

Want X­ray vision like the man of steel? A technology that lets you see behind walls could soon be built in to your cell phone. MIT professor Dina Katabi and graduate student Fadel Adib have announced Wi­Vi, a demonstration of a technology that uses Wi­Fi to allow a viewer to "see" a person moving behind a wall. (Wi­Vi stands for "Wi­Fi" and "vision.") Previous work demonstrated that the subtle reflections of wireless inter signals bouncing off a human could be used to track that person's movements, but those previous experiments either required that a wireless router was already in the room of the person being tracked, or "a whole truck just to carry the radio," said Katabi. The new device uses the same wireless antenna as is found in a cell phone or laptop and could in theory one day be embedded in a phone. [See also " WiSee Detects Your Gestures Using WiFi ."] The trick is canceling out all interfering signals – Wi-Fi doesn'

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's state media warned on Saturday that a "counterstrike" against the Philippines was inevitable if it continues to provoke Beijing in the South China Sea, potentially Asia's biggest military troublespot. The warning comes as ministers from both countries attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Brunei, starting Saturday, which hopes to reach a legally binding code of conduct to manage maritime conduct in disputed areas. At stake are potentially massive offshore oil reserves. The seas also lie on shipping lanes and fishing grounds. Both China and the Philippines have been locked in a decades-old territorial squabble over the South China Sea, with tensions flaring after the Philippines moved new soldiers and supplies last week to a disputed coral reef, prompting Beijing to condemn Manila's "illegal occupation". The overseas edition of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party,

Investigations into preventable baby deaths allegedly concealed by senior NHS management. London, United Kingdom - The highest echelons of Britain's National Health Service are under unprecedented scrutiny after damaging allegations linked the deaths of new-born babies to cover-ups, incompetence and smear campaigns by senior health officials. The deaths of 16 babies and two mothers, alongside numerous clinical disasters that left babies brain damaged, may have been avoided if clinical failures at Morecambe Bay NHS Trust in northwest England had been properly investigated, it was revealed in parliament. At the heart of the media storm were senior managers at the Care Quality Commission, the beleaguered health and safety watchdog, who allegedly destroyed a damning internal review that showed its own inspection failures had left patients at risk of seriously poor care. The police are being urged to investigate allegations of perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public

Reports say retired general is being probed for leaks linked to 2010 cyber attack on Iran's nuclear programme. One of the highest ranking military officers in the US is under investigation for allegedly leaking top secret information about a cyber attack on Iran's nuclear programme, according to reports. NBC news channel reported on Thursday that retired General James Cartwright, a former second-highest-ranking officer, was under investigation for leaking information on a covert computer virus, called Stuxnet. The virus was used in 2010 to temporarily disable 1,000 centrifuges used for enriching uranium by Iran's nuclear facilities. Cartwright, who was the number two person in the joint chiefs of staff from 2007 to 2011, was instrumental in the development of Stuxnet, and his role was publicised in a New York Times article published last year. The article exposed that the virus was the Obama administration's key weapon against Iran's nuclear weapons programme. P

At least 10 killed after explosions target roadblock run by government-allied Sunni group in western city of Ramadi. Two bombs have exploded near a checkpoint in western Iraqi city of Ramadi, killing at least 10 people, police and medics have said. The first explosion killed a police officer and the second bomb went off five minutes later as police and bystanders gathered around the wreckage in the Sunni heartland of Anbar, which shares a border with Syria. "We were on duty at a nearby checkpoint when the car exploded. We ran to work out what was going on, but before we reached the car it exploded again," said a policeman at the scene. Police and hospital officials said at least 22 people were wounded in the attack on the checkpoint which was run by Sahwa, a Sunni group that joined forces with the US troops to fight al-Qaida during the Iraq War. Since then, the group has been a target for Sunni fighters who consider its members traitors. More than 1,000 people died in a