BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany and Turkey summoned each other's ambassadors on Friday for tit-for-tat reproaches in an escalating row over Chancellor Angela Merkel's criticism of a crackdown on protesters in Turkey and her reluctance to see the country join the European Union.
After Merkel said she was "appalled" by Ankara's response to the protests, a Turkish cabinet minister accused her on Thursday of blocking Turkey's accession to the EU because she was "looking for domestic political material for her elections".
Berlin responded on Friday by summoning the Turkish envoy to the German foreign ministry - then Turkey retaliated.
Many EU countries support the opening of more negotiations with Turkey next week on its long path to membership. They argue that Turkey, with its fast-growing economy, youthful population and its diplomatic clout, would benefit the EU.
But Germany has criticized Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's forceful response to weeks of anti-government protests and appears to be refusing to agree to open a new negotiation area, potentially the first such step in three years.
Merkel's conservatives reject Turkish EU membership in their platform for September's election, saying it would "overburden" the bloc because of the country's size and economy, though Merkel has stopped short of calling a halt to accession talks.
"Neither the chancellor nor the government are questioning the accession process in any way. We are not talking about 'whether', just about 'how', to continue the accession process," said German deputy government spokesman Georg Streiter.
Foreign ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke said the Turkish minister's comments were "unacceptable" and that Ankara's envoy to Berlin had been summoned for consultations in the early afternoon.
Turkey reacted by summoning the German envoy to Ankara, with a senior Turkish official telling Reuters: "We want to convey our views on recent developments."
Peschke said Turkish accession talks had been held up for unspecified "technical reasons" rather than concerns about the crackdown, adding that the Dutch shared the German view. Chapter 22 of the talks deals with regional politics.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said this week he would like to see discussion of the chapters 23 and 24 that deal with civil rights, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. These have been blocked by other EU member states because of concerns about Turkey's record on human and civil rights.
(Additional reporting by Stephen Brown in Berlin and Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Editing by Stephen Brown and Gareth Jones)
Results from world's largest human cognitive performance dataset published in Frontiers in Neuroscience
Lumosity, the leading brain training company, today announced a new web-based, big data methodology for conducting human cognitive performance research. Lumosity's research platform, the Human Cognition Project, contains the world's largest and continuously growing dataset of human cognitive performance, which currently includes more than 40 million people who have been tracked for up to 6 years. The study, published today in the open-access journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, examined how Lumosity's dataset can provide insights into the lifestyle correlates of cognitive performance and the impact of age on learning rate.
Human cognitive performance research is typically conducted through experiments in the laboratory, with small numbers of participants often limited to university undergraduates and requiring in-laboratory follow-ups. This approach limits the kinds of questions that can be studied, the number and demographics of participants, and can be time-consuming and costly.
"New technologies and research platforms have the potential to transform the speed, scale, efficiency and range of topics in which neuroscience research is conducted," said P. Murali Doraiswamy, Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and co-author of the study. "This study is interesting because it brings to light the possibilities of what we can uncover by taking a big data approach to cognitive performance research."
The study presented two examples of research that can be conducted using Lumosity's dataset. Using survey results and a subset of the dataset tied to baseline performance on three cognitive exercises, the first study examined the effects of sleep and alcohol consumption on cognitive abilities, including speed (N = 162,462), memory (N = 161,717), and flexibility (N = 127,048). The study found that cognitive performance in all three tasks was most efficient, on average, for users reporting seven hours of sleep each night. The study also found that low to moderate alcohol intake a self-reported one or two drinks per day was associated with better performance in all three tasks, with brain performance scores decreasing steadily with every additional drink.
The second study examined how learning ability changes over the lifespan and how aging might affect learning across distinct cognitive abilities. The study included adults ages 18-74, and looked at how age influences improvement over the course of the first 25 sessions of a cognitive task. Tasks that rely on fluid intelligence, which contribute to learning, problem solving, and the ability to adapt to novel challenges such as working memory (N = 22,718) and spatial memory tasks (N = 23,109), were compared to tasks that rely on crystallized knowledge, which draws on accumulated knowledge and skills from your life experience such as verbal fluency (N = 107,478) and basic arithmetic (N = 41,338). The study found that the amount of improvement decreased as age increased, and that performance on tasks that rely on fluid intelligence decreased with age at a faster rate than the tasks that rely on crystallized intelligence. This finding supports the notion that, although raw cognitive performance peaks in young adulthood, the lifelong accumulation of knowledge compensates such that older adults can still perform at a high level.
"The goal of the Human Cognition Project is to rapidly and efficiently advance our understanding of the brain," said Daniel Sternberg, Ph.D, Data Scientist at Lumosity and lead author of the study. "We're excited for the potential that big data holds for conducting large-scale, collaborative, global research on human cognition. We're particularly interested in applying the knowledge we gain from this research in real-world settings where they can help people live better, fuller lives."
The Human Cognition Project works with researchers worldwide to study human cognitive performance. The technology supports both experimental research, where independent researchers design and conduct studies on the effects of computerized cognitive training, and observational research, where collaborators explore data from Lumosity's continuously growing database. Researchers interested in exploring Lumosity's de-identified dataset can submit research proposals at http://hcp.lumosity.com/get_involved/researcher.
###
About Lumosity
Lumosity is committed to pioneering the understanding and enhancement of the human brain to give each person the power to unlock their full potential. Lumosity's online and mobile programs train core cognitive abilities such as memory and attention. Launched in 2007, Lumosity now has more than 40 games, 40 million members, and paying subscribers from 180 countries. Lumosity's games are based on the latest discoveries in neuroscience, with continuing independent third-party studies being conducted by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and other academic institutions. Lumosity is available at Lumosity.com and on the iPhone. Lumosity is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit http://www.lumosity.com.
About Frontiers
Frontiers, a partner of Nature Publishing Group, is a community driven scholarly open-access publisher and research networking platform. Based in Switzerland, and formed by scientists in 2007, Frontiers is one of the largest and fastest growing publishers and its mission is to empower all academic communities to drive research publishing and communication into the 21st century with a whole ecosystem of open science tools.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations, such as, the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Lumosity's big data provides new approach to understanding human cognitionPublic release date: 20-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Results from world's largest human cognitive performance dataset published in Frontiers in Neuroscience
Lumosity, the leading brain training company, today announced a new web-based, big data methodology for conducting human cognitive performance research. Lumosity's research platform, the Human Cognition Project, contains the world's largest and continuously growing dataset of human cognitive performance, which currently includes more than 40 million people who have been tracked for up to 6 years. The study, published today in the open-access journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, examined how Lumosity's dataset can provide insights into the lifestyle correlates of cognitive performance and the impact of age on learning rate.
Human cognitive performance research is typically conducted through experiments in the laboratory, with small numbers of participants often limited to university undergraduates and requiring in-laboratory follow-ups. This approach limits the kinds of questions that can be studied, the number and demographics of participants, and can be time-consuming and costly.
"New technologies and research platforms have the potential to transform the speed, scale, efficiency and range of topics in which neuroscience research is conducted," said P. Murali Doraiswamy, Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and co-author of the study. "This study is interesting because it brings to light the possibilities of what we can uncover by taking a big data approach to cognitive performance research."
The study presented two examples of research that can be conducted using Lumosity's dataset. Using survey results and a subset of the dataset tied to baseline performance on three cognitive exercises, the first study examined the effects of sleep and alcohol consumption on cognitive abilities, including speed (N = 162,462), memory (N = 161,717), and flexibility (N = 127,048). The study found that cognitive performance in all three tasks was most efficient, on average, for users reporting seven hours of sleep each night. The study also found that low to moderate alcohol intake a self-reported one or two drinks per day was associated with better performance in all three tasks, with brain performance scores decreasing steadily with every additional drink.
The second study examined how learning ability changes over the lifespan and how aging might affect learning across distinct cognitive abilities. The study included adults ages 18-74, and looked at how age influences improvement over the course of the first 25 sessions of a cognitive task. Tasks that rely on fluid intelligence, which contribute to learning, problem solving, and the ability to adapt to novel challenges such as working memory (N = 22,718) and spatial memory tasks (N = 23,109), were compared to tasks that rely on crystallized knowledge, which draws on accumulated knowledge and skills from your life experience such as verbal fluency (N = 107,478) and basic arithmetic (N = 41,338). The study found that the amount of improvement decreased as age increased, and that performance on tasks that rely on fluid intelligence decreased with age at a faster rate than the tasks that rely on crystallized intelligence. This finding supports the notion that, although raw cognitive performance peaks in young adulthood, the lifelong accumulation of knowledge compensates such that older adults can still perform at a high level.
"The goal of the Human Cognition Project is to rapidly and efficiently advance our understanding of the brain," said Daniel Sternberg, Ph.D, Data Scientist at Lumosity and lead author of the study. "We're excited for the potential that big data holds for conducting large-scale, collaborative, global research on human cognition. We're particularly interested in applying the knowledge we gain from this research in real-world settings where they can help people live better, fuller lives."
The Human Cognition Project works with researchers worldwide to study human cognitive performance. The technology supports both experimental research, where independent researchers design and conduct studies on the effects of computerized cognitive training, and observational research, where collaborators explore data from Lumosity's continuously growing database. Researchers interested in exploring Lumosity's de-identified dataset can submit research proposals at http://hcp.lumosity.com/get_involved/researcher.
###
About Lumosity
Lumosity is committed to pioneering the understanding and enhancement of the human brain to give each person the power to unlock their full potential. Lumosity's online and mobile programs train core cognitive abilities such as memory and attention. Launched in 2007, Lumosity now has more than 40 games, 40 million members, and paying subscribers from 180 countries. Lumosity's games are based on the latest discoveries in neuroscience, with continuing independent third-party studies being conducted by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and other academic institutions. Lumosity is available at Lumosity.com and on the iPhone. Lumosity is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit http://www.lumosity.com.
About Frontiers
Frontiers, a partner of Nature Publishing Group, is a community driven scholarly open-access publisher and research networking platform. Based in Switzerland, and formed by scientists in 2007, Frontiers is one of the largest and fastest growing publishers and its mission is to empower all academic communities to drive research publishing and communication into the 21st century with a whole ecosystem of open science tools.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations, such as, the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Turkish riot police storm Istanbul park in bid to end protests
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish riot police stormed an Istanbul park at the heart of two weeks of protest against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday, firing tear gas and water cannon and sending hundreds scurrying into surrounding streets. Lines of police backed by armored vehicles sealed off Taksim Square in the center of the city as officers stormed the adjoining Gezi Park, where protesters had been living in a ramshackle tent camp.
Iran's new president hails 'victory of moderation'
DUBAI (Reuters) - Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani won Iran's presidential election on Saturday with a resounding defeat of conservative hardliners, calling it a victory of moderation over extremism and pledging a new tone of respect in international affairs. Though thousands of jubilant Iranians poured onto the streets in celebration of the victory, the outcome will not soon transform Iran's tense relations with the West, resolve the row over its nuclear program or lessen its support of Syria's president in the civil war there - matters of national security that remain the domain of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
U.S. puts jets in Jordan, fuels Russian fear of Syria no-fly zone
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday it would keep F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles in Jordan at Amman's request, and Russia bristled at the possibility they could be used to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria. Washington, which has long called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, pledged military support to Syrian rebels this week, citing what it said was the Syrian military's use of chemical weapons - an allegation Damascus has denied.
Relationship between Czech PM and aide at heart of graft scandal
PRAGUE (Reuters) - A corruption scandal rocking the Czech government involves power and money but also, at its heart, questions about the nature of the relationship between the prime minister and a trusted female aide. Jana Nagyova, who runs Prime Minister Petr Necas's office, is in custody, accused, among other things, of illegally ordering military intelligence agents to conduct surveillance on three unnamed individuals.
Mortar attack on Iranian dissident camp in Iraq kills three
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A mortar attack on an Iranian dissident camp killed three people in Baghdad on Saturday, police sources said, and the Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK) group said Iran was probably to blame, with Iraqi complicity. MEK said two of the camp's residents were killed and 40 wounded in the attack. An Iraqi died when a stray mortar round hit a residential complex for Baghdad airport employees nearby.
Bulgaria to replace new security chief after public backlash
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's Socialist-led government said on Saturday it would reverse its appointment of a powerful media figure as head of state security just a day after rushing it through parliament, bowing to public outrage two weeks after taking power. About 8,000 people rallied in downtown Sofia for a second day, chanting "Mafia!" and "Resignation!".
Hospital siege, blasts new Pakistan government's first security test
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants in a volatile region of western Pakistan bombed a bus carrying women students on Saturday and then seized part of the hospital where survivors were taken, in the first major security test for the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. At least 22 people were killed in a day of violence that started with an apparent separatist attack that destroyed a summer retreat once used by the nation's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the hills of Baluchistan province.
Analysis: Iran moderate's poll triumph is mandate for change
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian voters weary of years of economic isolation and tightening political restrictions threw down a blunt demand for change on Saturday by handing a moderate cleric a landslide victory in a presidential election. Having waited throughout Friday night and most of Saturday, millions of Iranians at home and abroad greeted Hassan Rohani's victory with a mix of euphoria and relief that eight years under hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were finally over.
Three killed by explosion at Tanzanian opposition party rally
DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - At least three people were killed and several injured on Saturday evening by an explosion at an election rally held by Tanzanian opposition party Chadema, witnesses and the state broadcaster said. Police said they were still investigating the cause of the blast in the northern city of Arusha but senior political figures made clear they believed the incident was a bombing.
Egypt detains man suspected of spying for Israel
CAIRO (Reuters) - Authorities in Egypt have detained an Egyptian man suspected of spying for Israel, the state news agency said on Saturday. He is believed to have been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad in 2011, the agency reported. The state security prosecutor ordered the man to be held for 15 days pending investigations.
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Islamist president announced Saturday that he was cutting off diplomatic relations with Syria and closing Damascus' embassy in Cairo, decisions made amid growing calls from hard-line Sunni clerics in Egypt and elsewhere to launch a "holy war" against Syria's embattled regime.
Mohammed Morsi told thousands of supporters at a rally in Cairo that his government was also withdrawing the Egyptian charge d'affaires from Damascus. He called on Lebanon's Hezbollah to leave Syria, where the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group has been fighting alongside troops loyal to embattled President Bashar Assad against the mostly Sunni rebels.
"Hezbollah must leave Syria. This is serious talk: There is no business or place for Hezbollah in Syria," said Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president. Assad's regime, he said, will have no place in the future of Syria after committing what Morsi called "horrors" against its people.
Morsi's address, particularly his call on Hezbollah to leave Syria, and the fiery rhetoric used by well-known Muslim clerics this weekend point to the increasing perception of the Syrian conflict as sectarian. At least 93,000 people have been killed since turmoil there began more than two years ago.
The rally that Morsi addressed on Saturday was called for by hardline Islamists loyal to the Egyptian president to show solidarity with the people of Syria. Morsi addressed the rally after several hardline Islamist clerics spoke, all of whom called on him to do everything he could to help the Syrian rebels. Those attending the rally, about 20,000, chanted for solidarity with the Syrians, but occasionally deviated to shout slogans in support of Morsi.
The Egyptian president picked up a flag of the Syrian revolution and another of Egypt and waved them to the crowd as he entered the indoor stadium in a Cairo suburb.
Morsi also used the occasion to warn his opponents at home against the use of violence in mass protests planned for June 30, the anniversary of his assumption to power. Before he spoke, one hardline cleric, Mohammed Abdel-Maqsoud, recited an often repeated Muslim prayer against the "enemies" of God and Islam but used it to refer to the June 30 protesters.
The climate in the Cairo indoor stadium where the rally was held appeared to further entrench the division of Egypt into two camps: one led by Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, and the other grouping the secular and liberal opposition together with moderate Muslims, minority Christians and a large percentage of women.
In his address, Morsi repeated the allegation that Egyptians loyal to the now-ousted regime of autocrat Hosni Mubarak were behind the planned protests and that they were working against the January 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak. As customary since taking office, he spoke of himself as a guardian and protector of the revolution, an assertion hotly disputed by his critics.
"Some who are delusionary want to pounce on the January revolution and think that they can undermine the stability that is growing daily or undermine the resolve that people have clearly forged with their will," said Morsi.
"We will deal with them decisively and there will never be a place for them among us," he told his supporters.
Morsi's government is widely thought to have failed to tackle any of the seemingly endless problems facing the country, from power cuts and surging crime to unemployment, steep price rises and fuel shortages. The declared aim of the June 30 protests is to force Morsi out and hold early presidential elections.
Morsi's allies say the protests have no legal basis and amount to a coup against his legitimate rule. They have been calling on opposition leaders to enter a national political dialogue to resolve the crisis, but the opposition has turned down the offer, claiming that previous rounds of dialogue did not yield results.
Spearheading the opposition to Morsi's rule now is a youth protest movement called Tamarod, or rebel, which claims to have collected millions of signatures of Egyptians who want Morsi to step down. Organizers say they aim to collect the signatures of more people than those who voted for Morsi in the June 2012 election.
Some of the hard-line clerics who support Morsi have branded Tamarod activists as infidels or heretics and sought to frame their movement as an act against Islam.
President Barack Obama's decision to begin arming Syria's rebels deepens U.S. involvement in a regional proxy war that is increasingly being fought along sectarian lines, pitting Sunni against Shiite Muslims, and threatening the stability of Syria's neighbors.
Arming the rebels is bound to heighten U.S. tensions with Russia, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It could further escalate a brutal, if deadlocked, civil war that has killed nearly 93,000 people and displaced millions, with no end in sight. There are fears that Assad's stockpile of chemical weapons, believed to be one of the world's largest, could fall into the hands of Islamic extremist groups or that he might unleash them if he feels cornered.
WHY NOW?
Obama's decision marks a turning point for the U.S., which up to now had avoided getting drawn into the conflict militarily. A key U.S. concern had been that U.S.-supplied weapons could fall into the hands of al-Qaida-linked militants fighting alongside the rebels.
However, U.S. credibility was on the line after the White House said Thursday that it has conclusive evidence that Assad used chemical weapons against rebel fighters. Obama has said in the past such use would cross a red line, suggesting greater U.S. intervention.
Washington's decision comes at a time of several military setbacks for the rebels and the growing involvement of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which is fighting alongside the regime. Hezbollah's role was key in the capture of the strategic rebel-held town of Qusair earlier this month.
WHAT WOULD THE REBELS RECEIVE?
The full scope of the assistance authorized by the White House is still unclear. But the administration could give the rebels a range of weapons, including small arms, assault rifles, shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other anti-tank missiles. Rebel commanders say they need anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to counter the regime's superior firepower, delivered from warplanes and armored vehicles. But Obama's opposition to sending American troops into Syria and concern about high-powered weapons ending up in the hands of terrorist groups makes it less likely the U.S. will provide sophisticated arms that would require large-scale training.
WHO IS FIGHTING?
The regional context for the Syria conflict is the struggle for influence between Shiite Iran on the one hand and major Sunni power Saudi Arabia on the other, backed by smaller Gulf Arab states, such as Qatar, and non-Arab Turkey.
Assad is part of the Iranian camp, along with Hezbollah. At home, he draws his support largely from Syria's minorities, including fellow Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, as well as Christians and Shiites. His other foreign backers include Russia and China.
Most rebels are Sunnis. The West, including the U.S., has so far backed the political opposition and provided humanitarian and non-lethal support to the rebels.
WHO HAS THE UPPER HAND?
Hit by defections, regime forces have been stretched thin, a key reason why Assad lost control over large stretches of northern and eastern Syria early in the fighting. However, he has been able to hang on to the capital, Damascus, and other cities, especially in the heavily populated west of the country. Building on the successful capture of Qusair, Hezbollah-backed regime fighters have scored a number of military successes in recent weeks. Pro-Assad troops are now trying to dislodge rebels from the cities of Homs and Aleppo, Syria's largest. The rebels hope the U.S. weapons will give them new momentum.
WHEN WILL IT END?
Neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. Fighting could drag on for months or years.
With Russia and Iran standing by Assad, he seems poised to cling to power for now, even if unable to retake all of Syria. Some predict an eventual division of Syria into regime- and rebel-held areas, with conflict simmering for years.
A fall of the regime, a prospect that appears distant at the moment, would not ensure an end to the fighting. Assad's die-hard supporters might not lay down arms and the rebels are divided between Western-backed moderates, fundamentalist Salafis and al-Qaida loyalists who could battle for control after a collapse of the regime.
Still, a defeat of the regime could curb Iran's influence in the Arab world, weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon and strengthen minority Sunnis in Shiite-dominated Lebanon and Iraq. In one reconfiguration of regional alliances, the Palestinian militant group Hamas last year broke away from Iran's camp over Assad's crackdown on the rebels, fellow Sunnis.
IS THIS A SECTARIAN CONFLICT?
The Syria conflict is whipping up sectarian fervor. Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region have risen sharply, particularly since Hezbollah raised its profile by fighting in Qusair. Sunni hard-liners view Hezbollah's intervention as a declaration of war by Shiites against Sunnis, and have called on Sunnis to fight in Syria. This could increase the flow of foreign militants into Syria. Already several thousand foreign militants are believed to be fighting among the rebels.
COULD THIS RAISE EAST-WEST TENSIONS?
Russia has been a major weapons supplier to the Syrian regime. Russia said repeatedly it would honor its contracts to deliver advanced missiles to Syria, including S-300 air defense systems, ignoring appeals by the West to halt shipments.
Russian officials played down the threat of an arms race Friday. Asked if Russia could retaliate for the U.S. decision to arm the rebels by sending the S-300s, President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the two sides aren't competing in Syria.
The rebels, meanwhile, could obtain weapons from other Western sources. Last month, the European Union decided to let its arms embargo against Syria lapse, enabling individual members to arm the rebels. Britain and France had pushed for the measure, though they said at the time such shipments were not imminent.
WHAT ABOUT CHEMICAL WEAPONS?
The regime's chemical weapons stockpiles are a major wild card in the conflict.
The Obama administration says the regime carried out multiple small-scale attacks with such weapons, killing up to 150 people. The findings announced Thursday were aided by evidence sent to the United States by France, which, along with Britain, has said it had determined that Assad's government used chemical weapons.
Experts say Assad might have been trying to terrorize rebels and civilians, while not causing mass casualties that would trigger greater Western military involvement.
The regime is believed to be in control of its stockpiles for now. Israel has said it would strike to prevent chemical weapons from reaching Hezbollah which has fought with Israel in the past.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE REGION?
The fighting repeatedly has spilled into neighboring Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, raising fears of a regional conflagration.
Lebanon, still scarred by its own 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, is increasingly on edge. Hezbollah's involvement in Syria has prompted retaliatory rocket fire by Syrian rebels on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes have struck three times at suspected Hezbollah-bound weapons shipments in Syria, and Israeli officials threatened more strikes in the event of future arms deliveries. Assad did not retaliate up to now, but said he would deliver a strategic blow if the Israelis attack again.
The conflict already has fueled a spike in sectarian warfare in Iraq as the Shiite-led government struggles to contain its worst eruption of violence in years amid a wave of Sunni unrest. Syrians have been killed in Iraq and combat-hardened Iraqi fighters have been crisscrossing the frontier.
Turkey has repeatedly struck back at the Syrian military in response to shelling and mortar rounds that landed on its territory. NATO has sent anti-aircraft batteries to Turkey's border area with Syria. In May, two car bombs blamed on Syria killed more than 50 people in a Turkish border town.
___
Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Baghdad and Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's supreme leader delivered a salty rebuke to the U.S. Friday as Iranians lined up to vote in a presidential election that has suddenly become a showdown across the Islamic Republic's political divide: hard-liners looking to cement their control and re-energized reformists backing the lone moderate.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded to U.S. questions over the openness of the balloting, telling Washington "the hell with you" after voting in a race widely criticized in the West as pre-rigged in favor of Tehran's ruling system.
Long lines snaked outside some voting stations in Tehran and elsewhere. Iran's interior ministry extended the voting time by five hours. The enthusiasm suggested an election once viewed as a pre-engineered victory for Iran's ruling establishment has become a chance for reform-minded voters to re-exert their voices after years of withering crackdowns.
There is no clear front-runner among the six candidates trying to succeed the combative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose eight-year era is coming to an end because of rules blocking a run for a third consecutive term. But influential figures on all sides have appealed for a strong turnout, indicating both the worries and hopes across an election that has been transformed in recent days.
Iran's loose coalition of liberals, reformists and opposition activists ? battered and fragmented by relentless pressures ? have found last-minute inspiration in former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani, the only relative moderate left in the race.
A victory by Rowhani would be seen as a small setback for Iran's hard-liners, but not the type of overwhelming challenge posed four years ago by the reformist Green Movement, which was brutally crushed after mass protests claiming Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election was the result of systematic fraud in the vote counting.
Iran's president has no direct say in key decisions ? such as the nuclear program, defense and foreign relations ? but sets an important tone on the world stage and as the country's main envoy.
If no candidate wins an outright majority, a runoff pitting the two top finishers would take place June 21, so even a strong showing by Rowhani in Friday's voting could face another test. Results are expected early Saturday.
Rowhani's backers, such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ? who was blocked from running by Iran's ruling system ? have urged reformists and others to cast ballots and abandon plans to boycott the election in protest over years of arrests and intimidation.
"Both I and my mother voted for Rowhani," said Saeed Joorabchi, a university student in geography, after casting his ballot at a mosque in west Tehran.
In the Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas, local journalist Ali Reza Khorshidzadeh said many polling stations have significant lines and many voters appear to back Rowhani.
But fervor also was strong for other presumed leading candidates: hardline nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who is boosted by a reputation as a steady hand for Iran's sanctions-wracked economy.
"We should resist the West," said Tehran taxi driver Hasan Ghasemi, who backed Jalili.
Outside Iran, votes were casts by the country's huge diaspora including Dubai, London and points across the United States.
Khamenei, who has not publicly endorsed a successor for Ahmadinejad following their falling out over the president's attempts to challenge the supreme leader's near-absolute powers, remained mum on his choice Friday.
Instead, he blasted the U.S. for its repeated criticism of Iran's clampdowns on the opposition and the rejection of Rafsanjani and other moderate voices from the ballot.
"Recently I have heard that a U.S. security official has said they do not accept this election," Khamenei was quoted by state TV after casting his vote. "OK, the hell with you."
In Washington on Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that while the U.S. does not think the Iranian election process is transparent, it is not discouraging the Iranian people from voting.
"We certainly encourage them to," Psaki said. "But certainly the history here and what happened just four years ago gives all of us pause."
Iran's election overseers allowed eight candidates on the ballot out of more than 680 registered. Two candidates later dropped out in bids to consolidate votes with rivals. Journalists were under wide-ranging restrictions such as requiring permission to travel around the country. Iran does not allow outside election observers.
Iran's security networks, meanwhile, have displayed their near-blanket control, ranging from swift crackdowns on any public dissent to cyberpolice blocking opposition Internet websites and social media.
Yet other cracks are evident.
Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have pummeled the economy by shrinking vital oil sales and leaving the country isolated from international banking systems. New U.S. measures taking effect July 1 further target the country's currency, the rial, which has lost half its foreign exchange value in the past year, driving prices of food and consumer goods sharply higher.
Such concerns could have a direct effect on the outcome of the election. Qalibaf is widely viewed as a capable fiscal manager and could draw in votes, since economic affairs are among the direct responsibilities of Iran's president.
All other major issues are fully controlled by the Khamenei, his inner circle and its protectors, led by the powerful Revolutionary Guard. The other candidates permitted on the ballot by election overseers are seen as loyalists, including Jalili and Khamenei adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.
Such insiders in the presidency would give Iran's leadership a seamless front with significant challenges ahead, such as the possible resumption of nuclear talks with the U.S. and other world powers and the increasing showdown in Syria between rebels and the Iranian-backed regime of Bashar Assad.
Recent comments by Khamenei were interpreted as leaning toward Jalili, whose reputation is further enhanced by a battlefield injury during the 1980-88 war with Iraq that cost him the lower part of his right leg.
But the election also could leave Iran further divided. Rowhani's rapid rise from longshot to reformist hopeful ? aided by endorsements from artists and activists ? has shown the resilience of Iran's opposition despite relentless crackdowns. A defeat could leave them even more embittered and alienated.
At final rallies, Rowhani's supporters waved his campaign's signature purple ? a clear nod to the single-color identity of the now-crushed Green Movement and its leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest for more than two years. On Wednesday, thousands of supporters welcomed Rowhani yelling: "Long live reforms."
Some Rowhani backers also have used the campaign events to chant for the release of Mousavi and other political prisoners, including former parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi, leading to some arrests and scuffles with police.
Rowhani is far from a radical outsider, though. He led the influential Supreme National Security Council and was given the highly sensitive nuclear envoy role in 2003, a year after Iran's 20-year-old atomic program was revealed.
But he is believed to favor a less confrontational approach with the West and would give a forum for now-sidelined officials such as Rafsanjani and former President Mohammad Khatami, whose reformist terms from 1997-2005 opened unprecedented social and political freedoms that have since been largely rolled back.
Watching a video of your own body pulsing in time with your heartbeat can trigger an out-of-body experience. The illusion shows that our experience of existing inside our body depends on both external and internal sensations.
We take for granted our bodily self-consciousness ? the feeling of owning and being anchored in a body. But out-of-body experiences (OBEs) that occur, say, during epileptic seizures or even spontaneously in some people suggest that aspects of bodily self-consciousness can be disrupted.
OBEs have also been induced in the lab by feeding people conflicting sensory information, causing them to identify with a virtual body or a mannequin. In all these cases, researchers manipulated external, or exteroceptive, sensations such as vision and touch.
Could an out-of-body experience be induced by exploiting an internal or interoceptive signal, such as one's heartbeat? Jane Aspell and Lukas Heydrich, both then at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, along with Olaf Blanke and colleagues, decided to find out.
Virtual body with halo
They asked 17 people to stand wearing a head-mounted display that showed them a live video of themselves being filmed from behind, so that these volunteers were in effect seeing their own backs about 2 metres in front of them. The participants also saw a software-generated outline that surrounded the virtual body, like a halo.
The volunteers were also fitted with chest electrodes that recorded their heartbeat. This signal was used to make the halo flash, either in time with the heartbeat or slightly out of step. When the flashing was in sync with the signal, it was as if the subjects were watching their own heartbeat, though they were unaware of this. "Of course, it's not something you are exposed to in everyday life," says Heydrich. "You don't usually see your heart beating."
After six minutes of watching their own bodies on the display, with outlines flashing either in sync or out of sync with their own heartbeats, the volunteers closed their eyes and were gently guided backwards about 1.5 metres. Then they were asked to move towards where they felt they had been standing. In the in-sync trials, participants moved forwards closer to the location of their virtual body ? suggesting the experience had altered their self-location. The out-of-sync trials did not alter self-location in any significant way.
What's more, the volunteers' answers to a questionnaire after each trial revealed that they identified more with their virtual body when the outline flashed in time with their heartbeat. One woman said she "wanted to disconnect from her own physical body".
This is the first time researchers have created a conflict between exteroceptive and interoceptive signals to induce such an illusion. "It shows that interoceptive signals are important for self-location and self-identification," says Heydrich.
Philosopher Thomas Metzinger of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, who studies the sense of self, is impressed by the experiment. "It tells us that human self-consciousness is anchored in interoception in a much stronger way than people have acknowledged before."
The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Psychological Science.
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Public release date: 20-Jun-2013
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