Syrian Refugees Flee a Devastated Jisr al-Shughour

There was little possibility that the frail Syrian woman in her 70s could make the arduous, illegal trek across the steep, mountainous territory separating Syria from Turkey, but she nonetheless stood with a few young men who were hiding on the Syrian side, waiting for a Turkish soldier to move away from an opening in the coiled razor wire before dashing through it. After about a half an hour, she gave up.

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INTELLIGENCE: The CIA: Time to Come In From the Cold

Question: “Under what international law do we have a right to attempt to destabilize the constitutionally elected government of another country?” Answer: “l am not going to pass judgment on whether it is permitted or authorized under international law. It is a recognized fact that historically as well as presently, such actions are taken in the best interest of the countries involved.” That blunt response by President Gerald Ford at his press conference last week was either remarkably careless or remarkably candid

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Syria’s Wounded Refugees: Tales of Massacre and Honorable Soldiers

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t make threats lightly. And as they confronted the uprising in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, government security forces were blunt, according to the medical staff in area’s small hospitals and the local Red Crescent outpost there

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Sci-Fi Today, Sci-Fact Tomorrow

In the future of Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report, televisions and computers have been replaced by transparent screens on which life-size images appear to be floating in thin air. Watching Tom Cruise operate this fictional technology, David Lauren, Vice President of Ralph Lauren, was inspired to develop similar screens, but with a retail spin — his version would be implanted behind a store’s glass window and would be touch sensitive, allowing window shoppers to interactively browse through Lauren merchandise and purchase what they saw using a built in credit-card swiper.

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Iran: Where Politics is a Distraction from Making Money

Judging by the front pages of Persian language newspapers neatly laid out at every Tehran newsstand, political scandal is in the air. President Ahmadinejad’s closest aides, including right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, are being accused of embezzlement, cronyism, collaboration with opposition forces, and even pagan rituals thrown in for shock value.

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