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The corpus is unique in that it is one of the only publicly available mass collections of real emails easily available for study, as such collections are typically bound by numerous privacy and legal restrictions which render them prohibitively difficult to access.[6] In 2010, EDRM.net published a revised version 2 of the corpus.[7] This expanded corpus, containing over 1.7 million messages, is now available on Amazon S3 for easy access to the research community. Jitesh Shetty and Jafar Adibi from the University of Southern California processed this corpus in 2004 and released a MySQL version[8] of it and also published some link analysis results based on this.[9]

In addition to being a key economic concern, inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

An underlying theme in my conversations with global CEOs and senior business executives is that the acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption are hard to comprehend or anticipate and that these drivers constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed. Indeed, across all industries, there is clear evidence that the technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are having a major impact on businesses.

A key trend is the development of technology-enabled platforms that combine both demand and supply to disrupt existing industry structures, such as those we see within the “sharing” or “on demand” economy. These technology platforms, rendered easy to use by the smartphone, convene people, assets, and data—thus creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services in the process. In addition, they lower the barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering the personal and professional environments of workers. These new platform businesses are rapidly multiplying into many new services, ranging from laundry to shopping, from chores to parking, from massages to travel.

Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization (the Third Industrial Revolution) to innovation based on combinations of technologies (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business. The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.

Writing in the book’s introduction, Assange proposes that the diplomatic cables provide “the vivisection of a living empire, showing what substance flowed from which state organ and when”. Assange notes in his introduction that academic disciplines outside international relations, and where career aspirations do not go hand in hand with patronage by government institutions, have voluminous coverage of the cables. But the ISA does not accept submissions citing WikiLeaks’ material. Although ISA executive director Mark Boyer denies that the association has a formal policy against publishing WikiLeaks’ material, he says that journal editors have discussed the implications of publishing material that is legally prohibited by the US government. According to Gabriel J. Michael, author of the Yale Law School paper Who’s Afraid of WikiLeaks? Missed Opportunities in Political Science Research, the ISQ has adopted a “provisional policy” against handling manuscripts that make use of leaked documents if such use could be interpreted as mishandling “classified” material. According to an ISQ editor quoted in Michael’s paper, this policy prohibits direct quotations as well as data mining, and was developed in consultation with legal counsel. Stating that editors are currently “in an untenable position”. According to the editor, ISQ’s policy will remain in place pending broader action from the ISA, which publishes several other disciplinary journals. The ISA and ISQ concerns about handling material that the US government forbids —  which include WikiLeaks’ cables —  amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The cables go into the heart of an empire, and reflect on matters that affect everyone.

Without WikiLeaks, the public would still be in the dark about the Trans-Pacific Partnership “agreement” currently being negotiated. The treaty aims to rewrite the global rules on intellectual property rights and would create spheres of trade which would be protected from judicial oversight. Such agreements have the potential to change the fabric of how states operate, and the leaked cables shed light on how states negotiate significant treaties, aiming to keep citizenship participation in politics out. Where academia bans the use of important leaked documents the public loses out.

Facebook stated that it suspended Cambridge Analytica and its parent group Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) after receiving reports that they did not delete information about Facebook users that had been inappropriately shared. For months now, both the companies have been embroiled in investigations in Washington and London but the recent demands made by lawmakers focused explicitly on Zuckerberg, who has not testified publicly on these matters in either nation.

The findings also confirm that support for the Palestinians is rising fastest among the young – the so-called Millennials born after 1980. “Currently, 43 percent of Millennials report sympathizing more with Israel, while 27 percent are more sympathetic to the Palestinians,” Pew states. “The share sympathizing with the Palestinians has risen significantly in recent years, from nine percent in 2006 to 20 percent in July 2014 to 27 percent today” – in other words it has tripled.

These findings bode well for supporters of Palestinian rights. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination, has adopted some of the most extreme anti-Palestinian rhetoric heard in recent years. This may work well with her generally older supporters, with pro-Israel billionaires who bankroll her campaign, as well as with Republican voters she will be hoping to lure if she faces Trump in the general election, but the numbers show she’s more out of step than ever with her own party’s base. Her repeated denunciations of BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – are likely to alienate even more of the younger generation who believe that fighting for social justice everywhere includes Palestine. Whatever happens in the 2016 presidential election, the United States has never been more fertile ground to build support for Palestinian rights.

Fahrenthold’s story proved to be the most concurrently viewed article in the history of The Post’s website; more than 100,000 people read it simultaneously at one point on Friday. The interest was so heavy that it briefly crashed the servers of the newspaper’s internal tracking system.

The story not only damaged Trump but also elicited intense criticism of Bush on social media. Bush, 44, a cousin of former president George W. Bush, is now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show. Noting that “Today” has a huge following among women, some critics called for Bush’s resignation.

The quick succession of events left several questions unanswered, among them: Why did a 2005 recording of Trump remain in the “Access Hollywood” archives for so long before becoming public? And what other damaging outtakes, if any, remain in the archives of NBC’s “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice,” the reality shows in which Trump starred?

Trust has consequently broken down. The Russians are convinced that the US was never really interested in separating the moderate groups from extremists despite repeated promises, because Washington sees a use for al-Qaida affiliates, which happen to be the only capable fighting force to push the ‘regime change agenda in Syria. Put differently, Russians are inclined to agree with what Tehran has been saying all along. Moscow, therefore, switched tack and put its resources behind the Syrian operations to capture the strategic city of Aleppo and the military campaign is within sight of victory.

That is, unless there is US intervention in the coming days to tilt the military balance in favor of extremist groups trapped in the eastern districts of Aleppo with supply lines for reinforcements cut.

With no prospect of getting reinforcements, facing relentless air and ground attacks from the north and south, the rebels are staring at a hopeless battle of attrition. The point is, with the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian war becomes a residual military operation to purge the al-Qaida affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra from Idlib province as well, which means regime forces would secure control over the entire populous regions of Syria, all main cities and the entire Mediterranean coast. In a nutshell, the Syrian war ends with President Bashar al-Assad ensconced in power. The specter of “total victory” for Assad haunts Washington. It explains the string of vituperative statements against Moscow, betraying a high level of frustration. Theoretically, Obama can order missile attacks on the victorious Syrian government forces, but that will be like pouring oil on fire. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Pentagon that any US military intervention to remove Assad would result in “terrible tectonic shifts” across the region.

In considering the war option, Obama has three things to take into account. First, Washington’s equations with Ankara and Riyadh are hugely uncertain at the moment and both regional allies are key partners in Syria.

Second, Turkish President Recep Erdogan is unlikely to gamble on another confrontation with Russia when his country’s legitimate interests in Syria can be secured by working in tandem with President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.

Third, and most important, Obama is unlikely to lead his country into a war without any clear-cut objective to realize when the curtain is coming down on his presidency. In this current state of play, Assad stands between the West and the deluge.

But what rankles is that Russian victory in Syria would mark the end of western hegemony over the Middle East, and historians are bound to single it out as the defining foreign-policy legacy of Obama’s presidency. Certainly, Moscow cannot but be sensing this. Russia may offer at some point a face-saving exit strategy — but only after the capture of Aleppo. After all, there is really no hurry between now and January to salvage Russia-US ties.

The debris of Russia’s ties with the US lies all around and no one knows where to begin a clean-up. Relations got worse when Obama called the Kremlin leadership “barbarous” in regard to Aleppo. Then, on Monday, Moscow explained its decision to suspend cooperation in getting rid of excess plutonium (that could be used to make nuclear weapons) as being due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions” by the US. This was a decision that Moscow could have deferred until Obama left office. After all, it meant suspending the sole Russian-American nuclear security initiative carrying Obama’s imprimatur. However, Moscow couldn’t resist depicting a Nobel Prize winner who promised to ensure “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” as someone who actually enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in the security strategy of the US.

Which is actually more homophobic: questioning the Clinton Foundation’s lucrative relationship to those intensely anti-gay regimes, or cheering and defending that relationship? All the evidence points to the latter. But whatever else is true, it is a blatant insult to everyone’s intelligence to claim that the motive of these regimes in transferring millions to the Clinton Foundation is a selfless desire to help them in their noble work. Another primary project of the Clinton Foundation is the elimination of wealth inequality, which “leads to significant economic disparities, both within and among countries, and prevents underserved populations from realizing their potential.” Who could possibly maintain that the reason the Qatari and Emirates regimes donated millions to the Clinton Foundation was their desire to eliminate such economic oppression?

It doesn’t exactly take a jaded disposition to doubt that these donations from some of the world’s most repressive regimes are motivated by a desire to aid the Clinton Foundation’s charitable work. To the contrary, it just requires basic rationality. That’s particularly true given that these regimes “have donated vastly more money to the Clinton Foundation than they have to most other large private charities involved in the kinds of global work championed by the Clinton family.” For some mystifying reason, they seem particularly motivated to transfer millions to the Clinton Foundation but not the other charities around the world doing similar work. Why might that be? What could ever explain it? Some Clinton partisans, unwilling to claim that Gulf tyrants have charity in their hearts when they make these donations to the Clinton Foundation, have settled on a different tactic: grudgingly acknowledging that the motive of these donations is to obtain access and favors, but insisting that no quid pro quo can be proven. In other words, these regimes were tricked: They thought they would get all sorts of favors through these millions in donations, but Hillary Clinton was simply too honest and upstanding of a public servant to fulfill their expectations. The reality is that there is ample evidence uncovered by journalists suggesting that regimes donating money to the Clinton Foundation received special access to and even highly favorable treatment from the Clinton State Department. But it’s also true that nobody can dispositively prove the quid pro quo. Put another way, one cannot prove what was going on inside Hillary Clinton’s head at the time that she gave access to or otherwise acted in the interests of these donor regimes: Was she doing it as a favor in return for those donations, or simply because she has a proven affinity for Gulf State and Arab dictators, or because she was merely continuing decades of U.S. policy of propping up pro-U.S. tyrants in the region?

While this “no quid pro quo proof” may be true as far as it goes, it’s extremely ironic that Democrats have embraced it as a defense of Hillary Clinton. After all, this has long been the primary argument of Republicans who oppose campaign finance reform, and indeed, it was the primary argument of the Citizens United majority, once depicted by Democrats as the root of all evil. But now, Democrats have to line up behind a politician who, along with her husband, specializes in uniting political power with vast private wealth, in constantly exploiting the latter to gain the former, and vice versa. So Democrats are forced to jettison all the good-government principles they previously claimed to believe and instead are now advocating the crux of the right-wing case against campaign finance reform: that large donations from vested factions are not inherently corrupting of politics or politicians. Indeed, as I documented in April, Clinton-defending Democrats have now become the most vocal champions of the primary argument used by the Citizens United majority. “We now conclude,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the Citizens United majority, “that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” That is now exactly the argument Clinton loyalists are spouting to defend the millions in donations from tyrannical regimes (as well as Wall Street banks and hedge funds): Oh, there’s no proof there’s any corruption going on with all of this money. The elusive nature of quid pro quo proof — now the primary Democratic defense of Clinton — has also long been the principal argument wielded by the most effective enemy of campaign finance reform, GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell. This is how USA Today, in 1999, described the arguments of McConnell and his GOP allies when objecting to accusations from campaign finance reform advocates that large financial donations are corrupting:

So if you want to defend the millions of dollars that went from tyrannical regimes to the Clinton Foundation as some sort of wily, pragmatic means of doing good work, go right ahead. But stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by pretending that these donations were motivated by noble ends. Beyond that, don’t dare exploit LGBT rights, AIDS, and other causes to smear those who question the propriety of receiving millions of dollars from the world’s most repressive, misogynistic, gay-hating regimes. Most important, accept that your argument in defense of all these tawdry relationships — that big-money donations do not necessarily corrupt the political process or the politicians who are their beneficiaries — has been and continues to be the primary argument used to sabotage campaign finance reform. Given who their candidate is, Democrats really have no choice but to insist that these sorts of financial relationships are entirely proper (needless to say, Goldman Sachs has also donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, but Democrats proved long ago they don’t mind any of that when they even insisted that it was perfectly fine that Goldman Sachs enriched both Clintons personally with numerous huge speaking fees — though Democrats have no trouble understanding why Trump’s large debts to Chinese banks and Goldman Sachs pose obvious problems). But — just as is true of their resurrecting a Cold War template and its smear tactics against their critics — the benefits derived from this tactic should not obscure how toxic it is and how enduring its consequences will likely be.

He also spoke of the obstacles he faces back home: a Congress unwilling to authorize the use of force and a public tired of war.

As time ran short, Mr. Kerry told the Syrians that their best hope was a political solution to bring the opposition into a transitional government. Then, he said, “you can have an election and let the people of Syria decide: Who do they want?” A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said later that Mr. Kerry was not indicating a shift in the administration’s view of Mr. Assad, only reiterating a longstanding belief that he would be ousted in any fair election. At one point, Mr. Kerry astonished the Syrians at the table when he suggested that they should participate in elections that include President Bashar al-Assad, five years after President Obama demanded that he step down. Mr. Kerry described the election saying it would be set up by Western and regional powers, and the United Nations, “under the strictest standards.” He said that the millions of Syrians who have fled since the war began in 2011 would be able to participate. 0:19

“Everybody who’s registered as a refugee anywhere in the world can vote. Are they going to vote for Assad? Assad’s scared of this happening.” But the Syrians were skeptical that people living under government rule inside Syria would feel safe casting ballots against Mr. Assad, even with international observers — or that Russia would agree to elections if it could not ensure the outcome. And that is when the conversation reached an impasse, with Ms. Shehwaro, an educator and social media activist, recalling hopes for a more direct American role. “So you think the only solution is for somebody to come in and get rid of Assad?” Mr. Kerry asked. “Yes,” Ms. Shehwaro said. “Who’s that going to be?” he asked. “Who’s going to do that?”

"No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort”, a former Green Beret writes of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian insurgents, “they know we are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”. “I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. ... Murphy states bluntly: “distinguishing between the FSA and al-Nusra is impossible, because they are virtually the same organization. As early as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting with their entire units to join al-Nusra. There, they still retain the FSA monicker, but it is merely for show, to give the appearance of secularism so they can maintain access to weaponry provided by the CIA and Saudi intelligence services. The reality is that the FSA is little more than a cover for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra. ... It is one thing when Russia says somesthing, but another when Reuters, WSJ, and independent German and U.S. subject experts report this as facts. The first can be shunned as "Putin lies" but the others are extremely hard to refute. The Russians are right. The U.S. did not separate the "moderate rebels" from al Qaeda, as it had agreed to in the ceasefire agreement, because the "moderates" and al-Qaeda are the same. The "moderates" are al-Qaeda. This was not unknown. The 2012 Defense Intelligence Analysis said as much. The CIA of course knew this all along. But the Saudi tool heading the CIA, John Brennan, can not admit such as his masters in the Gulf are also the ones who finance al-Qaeda. They buy the weapons Brennan's people hadn over to al-Qaeda. The "end-user" according to this certificate for a weapon buy in Ukraine is Saudi Arabia. But who will believe that the Saudi dictators need for example 100 obsolete T-55 tanks? The weapons on the certificate, for an estimated $300-$500 million, are obviously for al-Qaeda in Yemen and in Syria. (Did Joe Biden or his son, both heavily engaged in Ukraine, get a provision from the deal?)

As the facts accumulate how long can the New York Times and Washington Post keep up with their propaganda claims. One has to admit, they really try their best. Unfortunately for them, their best is only mediocre. The NYT today found out that Vladimir Putin Relishes His Role as Disrupter. How does the NYT know what Putin "relishes"? The reporter did not ask Putin himself. But he did ask some knowledgeable experts with insight into Putin's inner mind and those assured the author that this is indeed the case. They know exactly how Putin feels. They are Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director and Robert Kagan, leading voice of of the neocons and Clinton promoter. Some "experts". Add that to dozens of stories on how "Russia indiscriminately bombs civilians/hospitals/bakeries in east-Aleppo" but never hits any "rebels" because none occur in these stories at all. A recent NYT piece of that kind had 14 "voices" in it. Eight belonged to various propagandists associated with the "White Helmets", four were "western" diplomats, one Syrian government official and a Russian spokesperson were quoted at the end. No Russian military and no one from west-Aleppo, where by far most people in the city live under government protection and daily rocket hail by the "rebels", were even asked. But all those tales we hear about the devilish Russians MUST be true! Even the 7 years old Bana Alabeb now tweets from east-Aleppo about her tragic fate under indiscriminate Russian assaults. This in perfect English and with an excellent WiFi and Internet connection as her many "White Helmets" photo attachments and her videos attest. But the whole city is devastated and in ruins she says, with phosphor bombs going off right in front of her house.

But Bana is a very responsible little lady: Bana Alabed @AlabedBana Dear world, it's better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & assad commit #HolocaustAleppo 1:53 PM - 29 Sep 2016 Here "mother" phoned up the Daily Mail for an "exclusive" and assures us that this is all true. The Telegraph has her in a slideshow with sad music and the Guardian promotes her too. Another Gay Girl in Damascus media fail. In 2011 the Guardian also was part of that scam. If that 7-year old girl is in east-Aleppo and not in Denmark or the UK, I must be on Mars. No sane reader will take such a stunt serious. What Public Relation company came up with this sorry flimflam? Like the "moderate rebels" fantasy, such tales and the nonsense the "White Helmet" propaganda outlet distributes, are starting to fail. The UAE's National, a well established international newspaper, recently dug a bit around the White Helmet's creator, a "former" British military agent working for Gulf defense interests. That does not sound charitable. This is noticeable report, even as it still lacks any details, as it is the first in a major paper that shows some auspiciousness against that outlet. The Obama administration's lies about the "moderate rebels" are now openly discussed in major media. The propaganda of #HolocaustAleppo (isn't abusing the holocaust meme anti-semitic?) is turning into a laughing stock.

Russia is upping its stake in Syria. Additional Russian SU-24, SU-25 and SU-34 jets are arriving. Nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers are on the ground. The CIA's  al-Qaeda "rebels" are losing in east-Aleppo and are in stalemate and under pressure elsewhere. They will be bombed to smithereens. A few new BM-21 multiple missile launchers and heavier anti-air artillery was delivered to them. But those are just band-aids on lethally bleeding wounds. Even MANPADs will not change the situation one bit. The U.S., the Saudis and especially Brennan's CIA have lost that fight. Will Obama and Kerry admit it? Or will they throw another Hail Mary and do something crazy?

For all his incapacity to formulate thoughts above the language skills of a third grader, Trump has been piling up astonishing proposals that resonate wildly, way beyond the “basket of deplorables” spectrum.

Trump’s attention span is notoriously minimalist. If his advisers managed to imprint – tweet? - a few one-liners on his brain, he would be able to explain to US public opinion how the US-China game is really played, something that all relevant parties in both nations know by heart.And the – crucial - missing link in the whole game is Wall Street.This is how it works.

The bottom line is that to recover US manufacturing jobs – as Trump has been forcefully promising – he will have to stare down the whole Wall Street finance oligarchy.So no wonder these oligarchs – responsible for shipping all those US manufacturing jobs to Asia and lavishly profiting from bailouts to the 'Too Big To Fail' racket – hate him with all their golden-plated guts.

He is against Cold War 2.0 and the pivot to Asia, when he says “wouldn’t it be nice to get along with Russia and China for a change?”He no less than pre-empted WWIII when he said he would be against a US nuclear first-strike.He totally abhors global “free trade” – from NAFTA to TPP and TTIP - because it has “hollowed out the lives of American workers”, as US corporations (under Wall Street’s “incentive”) delocalize and then import back into the US tariff-free.

Trump was even open to nationalizing Wall Street banks after the 2008 financial crisis.

So we’re faced with the ultimate surrealist spectacle of a billionaire denouncing corporate globalization, which has been responsible for stripping the US lower middle classes of countless, decent blue-collar jobs and social benefits – not to mention turning them into hostages of rotting public infrastructure. And all that with absolutely no one among the US establishment condemning the most astonishing wealth transfer to the 0.0001% in history.If in the next two presidential debates Trump points to the crucial missing link in the whole plot – Wall Street - he might as well lock on as a surefire winner.