Euro 2016 A 'Powerful Response' To Paris Attacks

Speaking on the eve of the finals draw in Paris, four weeks to the day after the attacks that left 130 dead, Patrick Kanner, minister for youth and sport in Francois Hollande's government, said that France had a responsibility to host a great tournament.

He also urged fans of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to travel to France, insisting that security will be a priority.

"The Euro 2016 football tournament will be the biggest international event to be hosted in France next year. And so we must succeed in making these Euros the best, most powerful response of international solidarity, going against everything that Daesh represents in the world today," he said.

"I would like to say to all the British people, British friends: don't be afraid, come to France next year for the sport, for the football, to celebrate the friendship between all the people in the world."

Security for the tournament has become a priority following the attacks, which saw three suicide bombers target the Stade de France in Paris, venue for the opening game and the final next summer.

The authorities have committed to retaining fanzones in each of the 10 host cities across France, as well as increasing security checks around stadiums.

More than 100,000 fans from the UK and Ireland are expected to travel to France, with supporters of Wales and Northern Ireland relishing their first chance to attend a finals tournament in 58 and 30 years respectively.

Jonathan Ford, chief executive of the FA of Wales, said that while security planning would be a priority, most fans would be preoccupied with getting tickets.

He said: "I got a funny Christmas card today saying Santa has had three million requests for tickets, and only nine for train sets."

England are among the top seeds, meaning they will avoid favourites France, Germany and Spain in the group stage.

Wales and both Irish sides are ranked among the lowest six teams, meaning only one of them can be paired with England.

The teams will be drawn into six groups of four, with two from each group, plus the four best third-placed teams, qualifying for the knockout stages.

England manager Roy Hodgson said he was pleased to be seeded: "There were only five places, so it was good to get one of those five. So to be in that top pool and avoid five other very strong teams is obviously a very big advantage."

One man who will not be in Paris is former UEFA President Michel Platini, who failed in an attempt to have his provisional ban from football overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Trump's name, image removed at Dubai development amid uproar

The image and name of American presidential hopeful Donald Trump was gone on Friday from parts of a Dubai golf course and housing development amid the uproar over his comments about banning Muslims from traveling to the United States.

A billboard showing Trump golfing had been at the Damac Properties' Akoya development, as well as an image of Trump's daughter Ivanka. All that remained Friday was the brown background, though another billboard declaring the development "The Beverly Hills of Dubai" remained.

Also, pieces of letters that appeared to spell out Trump's name had been pulled down from a stone wall, the letters left lying on the sandy ground.

Damac Properties declined to comment. It earlier said it "would not comment further on Mr. Trump's personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene."

Trump has for years looked to do business in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf and the emirate of Dubai. But some of his rhetoric about Islam on the campaign trail -- including his call to monitor mosques and his proposal this week to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S. -- has led to increased wariness in the Arab world.

Earlier this week, Dubai-based Landmark Group pulled all Trump home decor products at its 180 Lifestyle stores over his comments.

Spain cocaine seizure: Drug disguised as wooden pallets

They also uncovered cocaine disguised as charcoal as part of the same shipment from Colombia to Valencia.

The authorities have arrested 12 people in Spain, Britain and Dubai.

Spanish customs officials say in recent years they have found cocaine in breast implants, a wig and even a plaster cast encasing a man's broken leg.

Police suspect that smugglers used a charcoal company in Spain as a front to import the cocaine. 

The drugs were then extracted from pallets and charcoal, processed and distributed around Europe.

Spain is seen as the main entry point in Europe for drug smugglers from South America.

Fighting ISIL needs more than air strikes

The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group cannot succeed without a bold, comprehensive international communication strategy consisting of smart media programming.

ISIL's media campaign has been a significant component of its operations against the West. The West's response needs to be equally potent and waged through local and international communication channels.

So far, the United States-led coalition's plans to bomb Syria have not included any new or coherent global strategy to discredit and challenge ISIL's messages.

"Terrorists do not primarily aim at the physical, but on the psychological effect of their attacks," according to researchby the Marshall Center for Security Studies.

Terrorism uses a strategy that primarily relies on the symbolic strength of the act.

"Its primary purpose lies in the conveying of messages to the target audiences," the study says.

"It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods," said Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, in a letter to Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader. "In fact, its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for the battles."

Symbolic strength of terror acts

The US and international community's plan to defeat ISIL consists of a military campaign, training and equipment, disrupting plots, cutting finances, and pursuing a ceasefire. All of this sounds fine but it is not sufficient. It needs to include the component that responds to the symbolic strength of acts of terrorism.

US President Barack Obama's speech on Sunday suggested that ISIL does not speak for Islam. True, but how do you convince many of its sympathisers that it does not when the group is claiming to fight in the name of Islam?

How do you convince many of ISIL's sympathisers that it does not speak for Islam when the group is claiming to fight in its name?

"They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death," says Obama. 

A Muslim boy looks on as he holds a placard at a rally organised by a Muslim charitable trust in Mumbai, India [REUTERS]

That's also true, but he doesn't tell us how to uproot the appeal of the cult, which even seems to have attracted members from Western societies.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's recent speech to parliament for permission to bomb Syria was equally devoid of a coherent strategy that would tackle more than just the military or security aspects. His counterterrorism plans mainly include police operations and targeting activists in the UK.

The terrorist attacks that killed more than 130 people in Paris last month were seen by counterterrorism officials as a demonstration of ISIL's expanding reach. Such attacks are meant to disseminate a specific message; they serve to recruit sympathisers by flaunting the group's accomplishments. 

The media hype may also be used to demonstrate the effective execution of terrorist attacks to those who have provided financial support. Once these messages are converted into images on TV and the internet and spread across the world, their impact is amplified.

So, air strikes alone would not destroy the impact of these graphic messages. There is an urgent need for a globally coordinated communication strategy over the internet and social media, as well as conventional media, such as television and radio, for the more remote or war-torn areas. The aim should not be propaganda or war messaging but a more sophisticated communication technique that defuses the marketing of terror as martyrdom or freedom-fighting.

Global counter narrative

The campaign should be coordinated with local, regional and international talents. Intellectuals, writers, film-makers, and media producers in affected countries could play a major role.

Specially made TV serials and feature films, even cartoons and games, could provide a strong local, regional and global counter narrative that exposes the contradictions between terror groups' messages and the more conventional teachings of Islam. The long-term survival and success of these organisations depend on their ability to project a legitimising narrative.

For example, it could be argued that Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner, which was turned into a film, did more to discredit the Taliban than any military campaign.

Likewise, some social media campaigns initiated spontaneously by ordinary people, such as #NotInMyName or #YouAintNoMuslimBruv on Twitter and the Open Letter to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook have been effective in providing that counter-narrative.

These are individual examples but their impact is short-lived. For an effective communication strategy, you need a long-term horizon, and messages that are repeated in different media packages globally.

The only counter-messaging strategy so far adopted by the US and Britain are the measures introduced for restrictions on the use of internet when the police and intelligence agencies were given new powers to track down those who plot terrorist attacks over the internet.

Terrorism is not an ideology

The newly proposed Europe-wide counterterrorism unit plans to do the same. And attempts at flagging or hacking "terrorist and extremist online content" have so far not succeeded in curtailing the activists' ability to expand their operations.

"They learn from their mistakes. They change and adapt to the digital battlefield," said Richard Stengel, US under secretary of state for public diplomacy.

In military terms, terrorism is a tactic not an ideology. But even with that logic, if the terror group's tactic is to use communication channels to convey its messages then the counteroffensive should also employ a communication strategy to defuse its claims and at the same time educate the marginalised groups which appear to be most attracted to it.

Dr Massoumeh Torfeh is the former director of strategic communication at the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan and is currently a research associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science, specialising in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Taliban claims car bomb attack near Spanish Embassy in Kabul

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a Friday car bomb attack on a guesthouse near the Spanish Embassy in Kabul. Spain said one of its police officers was killed in the bombing. A U.N. statement said an Afghan policeman had also been killed in the attack. Seven civilians were wounded.

Gunfire was reported immediately after the explosion, and erupted again later Friday night as security forces tried to flush out Taliban attackers from a heavily protected area of the capital close to many foreign embassies and government buildings.

Early Saturday, the Afghan government announced the end of the siege in a tweet. "Afghan Police Special Forces have killed all the attackers who were involved in last night terrorist attack in Kabul," said information ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

Reports throughout Friday put the number of attackers at five or six.

Earlier Friday, a Taliban spokesman said the attack targeted "an invader's guesthouse."

The injured were taken to a hospital operated by the aid group Emergency, about 700 meters from the embassy, according to a tweet from the organization, but there were no other reports of damage or casualties.

The attack was the latest in a series against foreign targets in Kabul as the Taliban have stepped up their attacks since the withdrawal of international forces from combat operations last year.

The blast, which interrupted several months of relative calm in the Afghan capital, came after President Ashraf Ghani returned from a regional peace conference in Islamabad aimed at reviving stalled peace talks with the Taliban.

It followed an attack on an airport complex in the southern city of Kandahar that killed 50 civilians and security forces personnel and was suppressed only after more than a day of fighting.

What Will Happen As The World Gets Warmer?

If the world temperature rises by two degrees, mountain glaciers and rivers will start to disappear and mountainous regions will see more landslides, as the permafrost that held them together melts away.

By 2100, sea levels could rise by a metre, displacing 10% of the world's population. Countries such as the Maldives will be submerged and the Indian subcontinent will be left fighting for survival. People will also die in greater numbers as they struggle with the increasing heat.

The ecosystem will collapse and a third of all life on earth will face extinction. Plant growth will slow, then stop. Plants don't absorb carbon dioxide very well so begin to emit it - making global warming worse.

The world's food centres will become barren and, within 85 years, one third of the planet will be without fresh water.

If the world's temperature rises by two to three degrees, up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest will be destroyed and warmer soil will kill vegetation and release more carbon.

Hurricanes will be stronger and cities in Asia, Australia and the south-east of the US will face destruction. Holland will be torn apart by the North Sea.

Saltwater will creep upstream, poisoning the groundwater and ruining the food supply.

If the world's temperature rises by three to four degrees, millions of people will begin to flee coastal areas, cities will begin to vanish and some will become islands.

The ice at both poles will vanish and this could see a rise in sea levels of as much as 50m, although this may take hundreds or thousands of years.

China, a major producer of the world's rice, wheat and maize, could see its agriculture fail - it will need to feed more than a billion people on two-thirds of its current harvest.

Summers will be longer and soaring temperatures will see forests turn to firewood, with even Britain's south reaching 45C. The increased demand on air-conditioning puts massive pressure on the country's power grid.

If the world's temperature increases by six degrees, rainforests will be deserts and massive numbers of migrants will flock to the few parts of the world they see as inhabitable, resulting in racial conflict and civil war.

Many will choose places such as Canada and Siberia but even those climates may be too hot to grow food.

Stagnant oceans mean more hydrogen sulphide, which kills the sea-life and, if the sea heats up enough, massive stores of methane hydrate under the sea will begin to escape.

Methane is flammable and the smallest spark or lightning strike could see fireballs tearing across the sky. Explosions greater than a nuclear bomb could destroy life on earth entirely.

Sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to cripple the ozone layer, leaving all remaining life exposed to extreme levels of UV radiation.

So what can we do to stop this?

Plant a tree, recycle, use energy-saving light bulbs and turn off the water while you brush your teeth. More drastic measures include giving up meat - or even giving up beef would make a big difference - and giving up your car.

Miracle Escape As Metal Beam Smashes Into Car

San Jose Fire Dept tweeted a photo of the damaged BMW

The BMW was travelling south on the I-280 near San Jose just after 2pm on Friday when the beam fell from the back of a nearby truck, fire department spokesman Captain Christopher Salcido told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The driver managed to pull over to the side of the road and was able to walk away from the accident.

San Jose Fire Department tweeted a picture of the damaged vehicle with the warning: "Reminder Always be alert to your surroundings.  Solo driver SB280 escaped with only a scratch."

Captain Salcido said: "Had the person been a little more to the right, it would have impaled him.

"It looks like he not so much dodged a bullet, but dodged a large beam of metal."