Hasta La Gadget!

The 2014 holiday shopping season is upon us! Hooray? With media and advertisers bombarding us with “Black Friday” and “Small Business Saturday” and recent headlines about stores being fined for NOT being open on Thanksgiving Day, I think it’s safe to say that American hype about holiday shopping is out of control.

Sadly, hype and spending are not the only things that can be out of control about holiday shopping. A quick review of holiday shopping-related incidents of Christmas past (am I harkening Ebenezer Scrooge yet?) shows that danger and violence related to crowds have become an expected, if not accepted, part of the holiday shopping experience.

In 2011, a man named Walter Vance suffered a heart attack at a Target store in West Virginia, and holiday shoppers just stepped over him and kept shopping. He later died at the hospital.

This 2013 piece about Black Friday violence, specifically, catalogues a number of incidents from around the country, including stabbings, shootings, slashings, shoplifting, and more.

And in 2008, a Walmart employee was crushed to death by crowds clamoring to get holiday deals.

If recent history is to be any sort of indicator, we can probably expect similar reports of unruly crowds and violence this year. So what can you do to protect yourself and your family in a holiday shopping crowd?

This is where I bring in Dr. Steve Crimando, an expert in crisis management and disaster response. I’ve had the opportunity to hear him speak twice in the last year, and both times I’ve come away with practical information that can be put to use immediately. Steve studies the psychology underlying group, crowd and mob behavior, and he has extensive practical experience. For example, he is the man behind the scenes keeping people safe at events like SuperBowl XLVIII at the MetLife Stadium and many more.

According to Steve, “Not all crowds are violent, but all crowds are dangerous.” When crowds turn into mobs there are various physical and psychological factors contributing to the shift. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that the context of holiday shopping sales checks off a lot of the requisite boxes. The sheer physics of an acquisition-motivated crowd can quickly become dire, and is the number one danger of being in a crowd. In deaths resulting from crowd-related injuries, most people die before hitting the ground.

People die standing up in crowds… from asphyxiation, and it’s called “crowd crush.” The compound force of five people can create vertical pressure of 766 pounds, which is enough to asphyxiate a person standing up. Add body heat, psychological and possible health factors, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Here are Dr. Crimando’s tips that anybody can use when in a crowd:

1) Go in prepared — carry a mobile phone, identification, and a small flashlight.
2) Wear tie shoes with a low heel or no heel.
3) Avoid “dangerous” clothing that can get easily caught or yanked.
4) Don’t respond to taunts.
5) Stay on the periphery of the crowd, if possible.
6) Don’t stand near temporary structures.
7) Don’t stand against solid/immovable structures.
8) If you get caught up in a crowd, move diagonally.
9) If you drop something, let it go. Don’t bend down unnecessarily.
10) If you go down, get up as quickly as possible, any way you can.
11) If you go down and can’t get back up, keep moving, crawling if you have to.
12) If you go down, and can’t move, duck and cover while trying to create an air pocket.
13) Most importantly, pay attention to your surroundings, and stay calm.

And on that note… happy shopping!

(Author’s Note: For full disclosure, Dr. Crimando and I are both members of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. I am on the board of the Northeast Chapter.)

This World AIDS Day, global resolve to end the AIDS epidemic has never been stronger. With its new Fast-Track strategy, UNAIDS has set ambitious goals for accelerated action in the fight against HIV. As Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, said in launching the strategy, we have bent the trajectory of the epidemic and now have a five-year window of opportunity to break it for good.

Preventing HIV among women must be central to this effort.

While there is much progress to celebrate in HIV treatment and prevention, protecting women remains a major challenge. AIDS is the number-one killer of women ages 15 to 44 worldwide. Women are biologically more vulnerable to infection and face deep-rooted gender inequities that increase their risk. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic has taken the greatest toll, young women are at least twice as likely to contract HIV as young men.

Existing prevention methods such as male and female condoms are not always realistic options for women. They need tools they can use easily and discreetly.

Promising new products such as microbicides could soon transform how women protect themselves. These products are vaginal gels, rings, films and tablets that deliver the same types of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs used to successfully treat those already infected with HIV.

Two microbicides – a gel used around the time of sex and a monthly ring – are now being tested in late-stage clinical trials in Africa. We could know as soon as next year whether these products are effective in preventing HIV in women. The gel, developed by CONRAD, delivers the ARV tenofovir to protect against infection. The monthly ring, developed by the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), releases the ARV dapivirine and could be the first long-acting, female-controlled prevention method.

If effective, these products would expand women’s choices and revolutionize their HIV prevention options. A range of options gives women more control over their health: some may want to use an on-demand gel, others may prefer a daily pill and still others may choose a ring that provides sustained protection. To capture the promise of these technologies, we need to be ready for results.

Getting an effective product approved so women can use it can take several years in some countries, but the work to integrate microbicides into the broader HIV prevention toolkit must start now. Successful microbicide introduction will require continued conversations with the women who will use them, well-funded and supportive policies, trained health workers, effective supply chains and strong partnerships.

At IPM, efforts are underway to prepare for future studies that would give women who participated in the current trials early access to the ring once its safety and efficacy have been determined. We are also engaging stakeholders in African countries to help advance the approval process in places where women are at highest risk for HIV.

Even if both the gel and the ring are effective, research must continue. No single product will be right for everyone. We must keep investing in research to develop different prevention technologies that fit women’s individual lifestyles and preferences and help us stay one step ahead of the ever-evolving HIV virus.

As we enter 2015, the global community has an unprecedented opportunity to stem the spread of the AIDS epidemic. This will not be possible if we leave women behind. Together, let’s make this the start of a new era for women’s HIV prevention.

Nov. 24, the deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement between Iran and P5+1 — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany — came and went without the agreement.

What happened? Iran made major concessions. It was excessive demands by the U.S. and its allies that prevented the comprehensive agreement from materializing.

The original Geneva interim agreement expired last July, but both sides agreed to extend the deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement to Nov. 24. Now, a new deadline of June 30, 2015 has been set. Both sides said that much progress was made, but some difficult issues have remained unresolved.

The agreement would have created an entirely new dynamic for the war-torn Middle East. It would have ushered in a new era of cooperation between two old nemeses, Iran and the United States, to defeat their common enemy, the Islamic State.

Given the historic significance of the agreement, why is it that a breakthrough was not achieved?

Iran’s Major Concessions

Several complex issues that had seemed unresolvable have actually been hammered out, but only because Iran was willing to negotiate with a spirit of compromise, of give and take.

The first concession concerned Iran’s uranium enrichment facility built under a mountain in Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, 90 miles south of Tehran. The West, led by the United States, had demanded that Iran dismantle the facility altogether. The facility is neither suited for military purposes, nor for large-scale industrial use; it was built by Iran either as a bargaining chip, or to preserve its indigenous enrichment technology in case the large Natanz enrichment facility was destroyed by bombing, or both.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and a principal negotiator, has emphasized repeatedly and emphatically, “Iran would not agree to close any of its nuclear facility.” Iran has agreed to convert the site to a nuclear research facility, representing a major concession.

A second concession involved the IR-40 heavy water nuclear reactor, under construction in Arak, 155 miles southwest of Tehran. When completed, it will replace Tehran Research Reactor, an almost 50-year-old reactor that produces medical isotopes for close to 1 million Iranian patients every year.

The West had demanded that Iran convert the IR-40 to a light-water reactor, due to the concerns that if the reactor, when it comes online, will produce plutonium that can be used to make nuclear weapons. But, Iran refused to go along because, first and foremost, all the work on the reactor has been done by the Iranian experts and thus the reactor is a source of national pride. Iran has already spent billions of dollars to design and begin constructing the reactor, but the West was not willing to share the cost of the reactor conversion to a light-water one.

On its own initiative, Iran has agreed to modify the design of the reactor so that it will produce much smaller amounts of plutonium. Iran also agreed not to build any reprocessing facility for separating the plutonium from the rest of the nuclear waste. This was again a major concession.

The third major concession by Iran was agreeing to stop enriching uranium at 19.75 percent (commonly referred to as 20 percent in the Western media, although the seemingly minor difference is actually quite important). After the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency refused to supply Iran with fuel for the TRR in 2009, Iran began producing the higher enriched uranium that the TRR uses as its fuel. Tehran agreed to stop producing the fuel, after stockpiling enough fuel for the remaining life of the old TRR. This was the third major concession by Iran.

The fourth major concession made by Iran is related to the issue of inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the IAEA. Although Iran had lived up to its obligations under its original Safeguards Agreement with the agency signed in 1974, the IAEA under its Director-General Yukiya Amano, who has completely politicized the agency that has contributed to the complexities of reaching the comprehensive agreement, has been insisting that Iran implement the provisions of the Additional Protocol of the SG Agreement, which Iran signed in 2003 and, without ratification by its parliament, implemented voluntarily until February 2006.

Iran set aside the Additional Protocol after the European Union reneged on its promises made to Iran in the Sa’dabad Declaration of October 2003 and the Paris Agreement of November 2004. Iran and the IAEA reached an agreement in November 2013, according to which Iran allows much more frequent and intrusive inspection of its nuclear facilities, way beyond its legal obligations under its SG Agreement. Since then, the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that Iran has lived up to its obligations.

The U.S. Excessive Demands

Three of the remaining issues concern the number of centrifuges that Iran gets to keep over the duration of the agreement, the duration of the comprehensive agreement and the mechanism by which the crippling economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and its allies would be lifted.

In fact, agreeing to limit the number of its centrifuges for the duration of the agreement is yet another significant, but unacknowledged, concession by Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran’s SG Agreement with the IAEA places no restriction on the number of centrifuges that Iran can have.

The issue of the number of centrifuges, NoC, is also mostly superficial. The efficiency of a uranium enrichment program is not measured by the NoC, rather by the Separative Work Units count, which is essentially the effort (energy, for example) used in separating a certain amount of mass (of, say, uranium 235 and 238) into a product (uranium 235, used as nuclear fuel and for bomb making if enriched to 90 percent or higher) and “waste” and, hence, measures the efficiency of the centrifuges. So, a nation can have a relatively small number of highly efficient centrifuges and still be able to produce large quantities of enriched uranium.

The number and efficiency of the centrifuges are related to the question of the “breakout” time — the time that Iran would need, if it leaves the NPT, expels the IAEA inspectors, and begins a race to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make one crude nuclear weapon. Aside from the fact that even if Iran did leave the NPT and did succeed at all the stages, it would be able to produce only a crude nuclear device, not a nuclear warhead, as there is no evidence that Iran actually possesses the know-how for miniaturizing a nuclear bomb to be carried by its missiles. The breakout time depends on a variety of factors, only one of which is the number of the centrifuges. But, the U.S. insisted that Iran must limit the number of its centrifuges to about 4,500, roughly half of the centrifuges that are currently spinning and producing low-enriched uranium in Iran. That would supposedly give the West about a year if Iran left the NPT and began a race towards a nuclear device or bomb. Iran did not accept the proposal, and presented its own study of the breakout time, indicating that it was at least three years.

The second unresolved issue is the duration of the comprehensive agreement. The U.S. began the negotiations by demanding a 20 year agreement. But, it became abundantly clear that it would be a total political suicide for the administration of Iran’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, to accept such a long-term agreement. Tehran’s hardliners would have overthrown his government by parliamentary maneuvering. Iran indicated that a seven-year agreement is acceptable, moving from its original position of 1-3 years, but the U.S. insisted that the duration must be a “double digit” number, meaning at least 10 years.

From Iran’s view, the most important issue is the lifting of the economic sanctions. And, here is an important fact: Even if Iran agrees to the U.S. proposal, the Obama administration will not be able to cancel its crippling economic sanctions against Iran, because Congress will block that. It has promised only gradual suspension of some the sanctions, which does not require congressional consent. In effect, the U.S. wanted Iran to give up its hard won “facts on the ground” in return for gradual suspension of only some of the sanctions. No nation would agree to such one-sided demands, let alone Iran, a nation that has lived with U.S. economic sanctions for over three decades.

At a symposium in Washington on Oct. 23, Wendy Sherman, under secretary of state for policy who leads the U.S. negotiation team with Iran, asserted that, “We hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively peaceful. If that does not happen, the responsibility will be seen by all to rest with Iran.”

The U.S., Not Iran, Is to Blame

Given all the concessions that Iran has made, given U.S. excessive demands on Iran, and given the fact that, in effect, the U.S. is trying to impose a new and illegal interpretation of Iran’s obligations under the NPT and its SG Agreement and the meaning of “peaceful nuclear program,” it is the U.S. that must be blamed for the failure of the negotiations, not Iran.

Lebanon is a dissected country. Religious and ideological divides long ago metastasized into politics and territory. The country has been trudging forward now for six months without a president because the Parliament cannot agree on a candidate. The lack of a central authority in the country means that there is no way to reel in the diverging factions. As more dust collects in the presidential palace, the more power that the Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah is able to consolidate. While the international community’s increase in pressure over recent weeks is welcomed, rhetoric alone won’t stop Hezbollah from riding out the crisis for as long as it can. The West must continue to support Lebanon’s anti-Hezbollah coalition in Lebanon and pressure all parties to accept a consensus candidate for president, a move that will weaken Hezbollah and strengthen allies of democracy around the region.

Lebanon’s Parliamentary gridlock, which makes the US Senate look like a fast-moving highway, has paralyzed state institutions, created a massive backlog of administrative affairs, and keeps the country perpetually divided at a time when endless hell stalks their eastern border. The sad truth is that only Hezbollah stands to gain from the continuing presidential crisis. By intentionally keeping the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) weak, they ensure their monopoly of force in the south. It also provides a pretext for armaments; the pitch is that if the government is weak, Hezbollah will be there to protect the people. Last week, they went so far as to announce the opening of their ranks to non-Shia Lebanese to serve in a new home front battalion in the Bekaa valley- a job expressly denoted to the LAF.

The strategies of Western countries have been unsuccessful until now in trying to tip the power balance in the LAF’s favor. France signed a massive $3 billion arms deal with the Lebanese government to be financed by Saudi Arabia. Since then, Lebanon still hasn’t received shipments of any weapons because of delays in the transfer. While the French government insists that the delays were caused by logistical complications, rumors indicate France’s hesitance of transferring weapons stems from the looming presidential crisis and overall instability in Lebanon. Aware of this, Hezbollah is trying to torpedo Lebanon’s only hope of gaining serious military edge over neighboring militant groups ISIS and Al Nusra, so it can continue to be the dominate protectorate of the country.

The anti-Hezbollah coalition in the Lebanese parliament, succinctly named the March 14th Movement, is predominantly Sunni and serves as the democratic counterweight to Hezbollah’s majority coalition. Since the crisis began they have made many honest attempts to bridge the gap between the two embattled groups. The leader of March 14th, Saad Hariri, recently released a policy statement of willingness for unconditional dialogue with Hezbollah. They went so far as to condone last month’s military crackdown in Tripoli where scores of Sunnis were arrested or killed.
The condemnation was praised by Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, but never reciprocated. Just a few days ago, Lebanon’s fifteenth attempt to elect a President failed to reach quorum because the parliament members representing Hezbollah boycotted the plenary session. The anti-Hezbollah coalition cannot be bullied into accepting Hezbollah’s terms and there are two ways March 14th, with the help of the International community can stop it:

Firstly, as an act of good faith to the West, Beirut should take steps to help moderate anti-Assad forces wherever it can. Allowing refuge, travel, and intelligence to those against Assad would bolster Lebanon’s allies’ interests and alienate Hezbollah. For example, last weeks release of Abdallah Rifai, a high-ranking Free Syrian Army (FSA) officer recently captured by the LAF served as a dual message to observers: showing the world Beirut is both committed to protecting Western and Saudi interests in the region as well as that they are willing to support Hezbollah’s competitors in Syria. To that end, arms deals with France and other benefactors must be acted upon. However, it’s important that mechanisms are set up to ensure that these weapons don’t wind up in Hezbollah’s stockpiles. The aid these countries give should be more focused on training, and medium and heavy arms versus light weapons. Things like anti-tank missiles and small arms, while important, can easily fall into enemy hands and end up being used on Western allies like the FSA or Israel. Heavy weapons like Land Rovers, helicopters, and planes are far more likely to stay in LAF coffers. Secondly, the Western world must put pressure on Iran, Hezbollah’s patron, to push the group into a compromise. This could be done in a variety of ways but would be most effective as part of larger framework in the continuing negotiations between the West and Tehran over their nuclear ambitions.

By forcing Hezbollah into accepting a consensus candidate dictated by the March 14th Movement, like current LAF Chief Jean Kahwaji, the rifts developing in the country over the past 6 months can finally begin healing. Lebanon needs the stability and depolarization that only a consensus president can bring.

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