A new hydrogel-based condom that contains antioxidants has been invented by a team of Indian-American scientists at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center. Not only does it contain plant-based antioxidants, which kills the HIV-virus in case of condom breakage but it also uses antioxidants to enhance pleasure. Experts say it is the new big player to join the fight against AIDS
Terrorist group ISIS has banned the use, purchase and sales of television sets in it's strongholds in Syria and Iraq in order to stop its members and subjects from watching channels that condemn their abominable acts. According to an ISIS leaflet obtained by Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered (RBSS), an anti-ISIS group, ISIS has ordered its fighters to break into homes to destroy TV sets and satellite receivers. The Terrorist group is known for banning and destroying anything that represents 'Western' symbols, and in recent months they have banned all Nike products from use within it's territory with ISIS fighters even comparing Nike's trademark logo to the sign of the cross being worn by many Christians in the West. ISIS in July also banned private internet use and access in Raqqa, meaning the people in the area had to use internet cafes maintained and monitored by the ISIS terrorists. SOURCE: LINDAIKEJI BLOG
Police have released CCTV footage of a man they are hunting over the discovery of an incendiary device in a shopping centre toilet.
The Fishergate Shopping Centre in Preston, Lancashire, was evacuated on Thursday morning after the device was found by a member of the public.
Lancashire Police said they believed it had ignited, adding that had it exploded it had the potential to cause "serious injury".
Chief Superintendent James Lee, South Division Commander for Preston, told local radio: "I would describe it as a small incendiary device which could have caused damage or injury to someone had it fully gone off."
The shopping centre was evacuated "as a precaution" and remained closed for the rest of the day. It is due to reopen as normal on Friday.
Detective Chief Inspector Jill Johnston, of Preston Police, said: "We are keen to speak to the man in this CCTV as we believe he could have information which could assist us.
"We are treating this as a criminal investigation and while the motivation for this incident remains unclear at this stage, we believe this device has been left there deliberately and did have the potential to cause serious injury if it had exploded."
The footage shows the man walking up an escalator in the city's St George's Shopping Centre just after 8.30am.
The device was discovered at the nearby Fishergate Shopping Centre some 40 minutes later and was recovered by bomb disposal officers.
One shopper, Adam Donnellan, tweeted: "Just been evacuated out of Preston fishergate shopping centre anyone heard anything? People running around like nut jobs."
Lancashire Police are appealing to anyone who recognises the man or has any further information to contact police on 101 and quote log number 293 of 17 December or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111
Moscow, Russia - Twenty leaders of 26 armed groups that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been "neutralised" in Russia this year, a top security official announced on Tuesday.
Vladimir Bortnikov, head of Russia's security service (FSB), said in televised remarks a total of 156 rebels were killed in 2015 in Russia's North Caucasus region, a multi-ethnic and predominantly Muslim region between the Black and Caspian Seas that has been plagued by waves of unrest for decades.
Almost 3,000 Russian nationals suspected of ties to ISIL were identified, and more than 120 Russians who fought for ISIL and other armed groups in Syria and Iraq have been arrested and convicted, Bortnikov said.The rebel underworld in Russia has been fractured and "virtually paralysed" following about 5,000 investigations into "suspected sponsors of terrorism", said Bortnikov, citing an FSB report on efforts to tackle armed groups.
The report presented to a panel of counter-terrorism and security officials in Moscow sounded triumphant, but analysts doubted the scope of Moscow's success in the troubled North Caucasus region.Although Russian authorities claimed to have succeeded in killing two notorious armed group leaders with ties to ISIL several weeks ago, there is also a worrying tendency to claim that civilians - many of them unarmed young men, killed in counter-terrorism raids - were "militant jihadists", a security expert closely familiar with counter-terrorism efforts in the North Caucasus told Al Jazeera.
"There is a trend to fabricate cases, when we understand that the killed [men] are called leaders of local militants that joined ISIL, or just militants. But in reality the cases are fabricated, and such victorious messages are very useful in terms of reporting," the expert said on condition of anonymity citing, fears of official retribution.
A massive exodus of fighters to Syria has also contributed to a reduction of violent crimes in the North Caucasus, where extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture committed by federal forces and security agencies fuel the violence, human rights groups and observers say.
"What really helped is that many active [armed rebels] have left" for Syria, Alexei Malashenko, a Moscow-based analyst, told Al Jazeera.He estimated between 3,000 and 7,000 Russian nationals were believed to have joined ISIL.
In November, ISIL released a video promising that "soon, very soon, blood will spill like a sea" in Russia as a result of ISIL-organised attacks in retaliation for Moscow's air strikes on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's opponents, which started in late September.
Bortnikov's report also emphasised the persistence of "Islamic militancy" in the region, where many armed rebels emerged despite relentless official pressure to eradicate "terrorist cells" and their leaders, Malashenko said.
"These leaders have been killed since 1994 - and they still re-appear. There are certain successes, but it only proves that there are a lot of [armed rebels], plenty, dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, and since the situation does not change in principle, the turnaround will go on and on. Some will leave [for Syria], some will return," he said.
The unrest in the North Caucasus is rooted in two separatist wars Chechnya - one of the region's provinces - fought against Moscow since 1994. The secular separatism in Chechnya has later turned into a region-wide rebellion and the creation of the Caucasus Emirate group.
It strove to carve out a huge swath of southern Russia with a sizable Muslim population and claimed responsibility for a series of attacks that killed hundreds in the North Caucasus and Russia's urban centres.
But the group failed to gain control of a single town or city and remained a loose conglomerate of cells scattered across the North Caucasus, mostly in forested or mountainous areas. It also could not unite fighters from dozens of ethnic groups in the region divided by feuds over land and power.
In recent years, the Emirate was decimated by pressure from Russia's military and police, while a growing number of its cells started to pledge allegiance to ISIL though obligatory videos posted online.
Iran has summoned the Nigerian Charge d'Affaires in Tehran to protest against deadly clashes between Shia Muslims in the country's north and the army.
Iran's foreign ministry called the violence between the military and followers of the Shia Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) "unacceptable", the official ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif had earlier contacted his Nigerian counterpart Geoffrey Onyeama to express his "deep concern" about Saturday's events in the city of Zaria.
ISNA said at least 12 people were killed, with both sides blaming each other.
The Nigerian military said one of its convoys was attacked by followers of Ibrahim Zakzaky, the leader of the IMN
"The sect numbering hundreds carrying dangerous weapons, barricaded the roads with bonfires, heavy stones and tyres," an army statement said.
"The troops responsible for the safety and security of the Chief of Army Staff, on hearing explosions and firing, were left with no choice than to defend him and the convoy at all cost."
The Iranian news agency said initial clashes were followed by an army raid on Zakzaky's home, which left several of his followers dead.
Nigeria's Muslim population is largely Sunni but the number of Shia Muslims has increased significantly in the past three decades.
Saudi Arabia says a coalition of 34 Islamic nations has not ruled out providing ground forces in the fight against Islamic State.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir said the alliance would share intelligence and train, equip and provide forces if necessary.
"Nothing is off the table," he said, when asked if the action would provide troops on the ground, though it is unclear exactly how the coalition will work.
"It depends on the requests that come, it depends on the need and it depends on the willingness of countries to provide the support necessary," he said.
The minister said there was "no limit in terms of where the assistance would be provided, or to whom it would be provided", and that requests for assistance from members would be dealt with on a "case-by-case basis"He added "discussions" were ongoing about sending some special forces into Syria as part of the US-led efforts to fight IS.
Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and several Gulf Arab and African states make up the coalition, a joint statement said.
Published on state news agency SPA, it said: "The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations centre based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations."
The announcement said there was "a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organisations whatever their sect and name which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorise the innocent.
President Barack Obama on Sunday pledged to "crush" the ISIL bunch in a tenacious, in number and keen battle that is tuned in to the country's qualities. His discourse intended to console countless who feel the president's position on terrorism is excessively feeble, didn't declare a redesign of a terrorism battle strategy that pundits have marked lacking to tackle the developing risk of terrorism universally.
Obama, said a week ago's mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, was a terrorist assault by a couple who had gone down the "dim way of radicalization" and grasped a "distorted" type of Islam.
"This was a demonstration of terrorism intended to execute honest individuals," Obama said. "This is what I need you to know. The danger from terrorism is genuine, yet we will overcome it. We will pulverize ISIL and some other association that tries to mischief us. Our prosperity won't rely on upon intense talk, or relinquishing our qualities or giving into apprehension. That is the thing that gatherings like ISIL are seeking after. Rather, we will win by being solid and shrewd, strong and persistent. Also, by drawing upon each part of American force. We ought not be drawn afresh into a long and unreasonable ground war in Iraq or Syria. That is the thing that gatherings like ISIL need. They know they can't overcome us on the war zone. ISIL warriors were a piece of the revolt that we confronted in Iraq. Be that as it may, they likewise realize that in the event that we involve outside grounds, they can keep up insurrections for quite a long time, killing a great many our troops and depleting our assets, and utilizing our vicinity to draw newcomers," Obama said.
THE carnage in California will be claiming its victims for a long time to come.
As investigators sift through the details of the perpetrators’ lives in search of clues to explain the motivations of the couple that unleashed such unspeakable violence on a group of innocent people, the rest of us will similarly search for answers to provide a proper context and narrative to these gruesome actions.
Undoubtedly, the single-most important element of that context will be the ready availability of firearms in the United States.
The fact that the shooters, subsequently killed by police, could amass high-powered weaponry and ammunition in such huge quantities over a period of time, in a state that has the strictest gun laws in the US, pierces through the storm clouds of confusion surrounding this tragedy.
Stricter gun laws can do a lot to cut back on such incidents, but the rest of the world can only watch in stupefaction as American lawmakers stubbornly refuse to pass the required legislation time and again.
But the steady accumulation of this arsenal by the two suspects also indicates that this was not a spontaneous act. In fact, the couple may well have thought of letting loose a carnage of this sort for a long time, which in turn suggests they harboured grievances and developed justifications for the horrible act they carried out.
Where they got their inspiration from to build this frame of mind will be a big part of the search for answers to their motivation, and given that both the perpetrators had a connection with Pakistan, and were strictly practising Muslims, the search could, at some point, touch Pakistan and the virulent strands of religion circulating with growing ferocity in the Muslim world.
The tragedy clearly highlights the philosophical vacuum opening up in our midst, that pit of darkness from which grows the nihilistic inspiration of militant ideologies.
In the days to come, as the investigators’ search for clues yields up results, a concomitant search for answers must also begin in the hearts and minds of thinking Muslims everywhere.
It appears we will now be adding two more names to a list that already includes the likes of Faisal Shahzad, Omar Saeed Sheikh and others of their ilk — young minds infected easily by virulent ideologies of hate, and reflecting on the sources of vulnerability that turns them into mass murderers.
In an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" that aired just days after the fatal San Bernardino shooting, Donald Trump claimed that he would "go after the wives" and families of terrorists because they "absolutely knew it was happening" -- just like, he said, terrorists' wives and families knew during the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"I will tell you, I would be very tough on families," Trump promised. "Because the families know what's happening."
Trump has pushed differing variations of this solution before: On Fox News last week, he said that "when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families."
Speaking with "Face the Nation" moderator John Dickerson, Trump said "common sense" was his motivation to go after terrorists' families.But he also cited the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a main reason to do so.
"We have a problem. The World Trade Center came down. And, by the way, speaking of coming down, they put their families on airplanes a couple of days before, sent them back to Saudi Arabia for the most part," Trump said. "Those wives knew exactly what was going to happen. And those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, except we had some very, very brave passengers, wherever that third plane was going. Those wives knew exactly what was happening."
In fact, according to the 9/11 Commission report, authored by an independent bipartisan group created under the direction of Congress and President George W. Bush, nearly all of the 19 terrorists to crash the planes were unmarried.
"The muscle hijackers came from a variety of educational and societal backgrounds," page 231 of the report reads. "All were between 20 and 28 years old; most were unemployed with no more than a high school education and were unmarried."
The report, the most comprehensive account of the 9/11 attacks, categorized the terrorists into two groups: the 15 "muscle hijackers" were those meant to overpower crew members and other flight passengers, while the other four took over the cockpit and piloted the planes.
Of the muscle hijackers, the report listed only one, Abdul Aziz al-Omari, as married. However, the report does not mention al Omari's wife ever traveling to the U.S. -- though according to a 2001 New York Times report, federal law enforcement had, in the early days of the September 11 investigation, mistakenly identified as a suspected hijacker another Saudi Arabian al Omari living in Florida with a wife and three children.
One of the pilot hijackers -- Marwan al Shehhi -- was also married, though the 9/11 Commission report again did not mention the wife ever traveled to the United States.
Further, Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 2001 terror plot, had demanded the other hijackers cut off any communications with their family: "Atta complained that some of the hijackers wanted to contact their families to say goodbye, something he had forbidden."
The report added that "the majority of these Saudi recruits began to break with their families in late 1999 and early 2000."
Trump has made exaggerated claims about the September 11th tragedy in the past. Last month, the billionaire claimed he had seen "thousands" of Muslims cheering the World Trade Center attack in New Jersey in 2001.
According to some reports, federal authorities in New Jersey did investigate a single claim of some residents celebrating on September 11 -- though they numbered a total of eight men on one apartment rooftop in Jersey City
WOLFSBURG: Louis van Gaal says Manchester United just have themselves to fault in front of Tuesday's victor takes-all conflict at Wolfsburg as they offer to stay away from an early Champions League exit. Van Gaal's Red Devils must beat Group B pioneers Wolfsburg to guarantee their place in the knockout stages having permitted the Germans to usurp them at the highest point of the table by being held to a goalless attract at home to PSV Eindhoven a fortnight back. Pioneers Wolfsburg will achieve the thump out stages without precedent for the club's history with only a draw, while United, who are a point behind, know anything not exactly a win could see them wiped out. Nonetheless, United could in any case qualify regardless of the fact that they attract or lose to Wolfsburg, if PSV don't better their outcome at home to CSKA Moscow in the other gathering match. In any case, Van Gaal needs to leave nothing to risk in Germany. "We have a tremendous Champions League match at Wolfsburg," Van Gaal told the club's United Review magazine. "After the baffling result against Eindhoven at Old Trafford, we now realize what we need to do so as to advance to the knockout phases of the opposition: win. "We have not made it simple for ourselves, but rather we realize that triumph in Germany won't just ensure capability, additionally guarantee we complete top of our gathering." Completing top of Group B will mean United keep away from any semblance of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich in the last 16. United lost at the same stage four years prior when a 2-1 rout at FC Basel saw them bow out in the 2011/12 gathering stage and Van Gaal's side is as yet searching for their first away triumph in the gathering for this battle. United's general away record against sides from Germany is won five, lost five with four draws. Their fans will have great recollections of their last outing to Wolfsburg when previous England striker Michael Owen scored a cap trap in their 3-1 win in December 2009 as the Red Devils came to the quarter-finals. Diego Benaglio and Marcel Schaefer are the main survivors in Wolfsburg's first group and VfL have lost seven in succession against Premier League clubs in Europe. Their last home thrashing to an English club was a 2-0 misfortune to Everton last season in the Europa League's gathering stages. Amid his two-year rule as Bayern Munich mentor, Van Gaal was unbeaten in four experiences with Wolfsburg, winning three of them. Manchester United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger is set to play his first diversion for the Red Devils in Germany since transfering from Bayern Munich. United were held to a goalless draw by West Ham at Old Trafford on Saturday which left them fourth in the Premier League table, while Wolfsburg endured a 2-1 rout at home to Dortmund on Saturday. In all rivalries, Wolfsburg have lost only four of their last 42 home recreations and have a 100 for each penny record there in the Champions League this term. "We need to win to advance, so we need to return to business and get ready for what is an enormous amusement for us," said Wolfsburg mentor Dieter Hecking as his side hope to keep their fantasies alive of coming to the knockout stages. Source : Dawn
