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Ahead of his visit to Brazil, Russia's President Vladimir Putin gave an interview to ITAR-TASS about the state and prospects of the relations between Russia and Brazil.

- How do you assess the status and prospects of the strategic partnership between Russia and Brazil? What key issues and specific proposals are you planning to discuss in Brasilia?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Our bilateral cooperation is of strategic importance, as Brazil is a responsible member of the international community whose political influence is steadily increasing; it is also the largest country in Latin America and one of the leading economies in the world.  It is enough to mention its active participation in BRICS, the G20 and a number of Latin American regional organisations (CELAC, MERCOSUR, UNASUR).

We support Brazil as a deserving and strong candidate for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. I am sure that this powerful and fast-developing country is destined to play an important role in the emerging polycentric world order.

I want to emphasize that Brazil is one of Russia's key partners in Latin America. We have long-standing relations of friendship, mutual respect and trust. We are actively developing political dialogue, defense, scientific, technological and humanitarian cooperation, as well as economic and investment ties.

Over the last ten years, bilateral trade has grown almost three-fold and reached $5.5 billion in 2013. Our companies maintain close contacts through the Brazil-Russia Business Council. The citizens of our countries no longer need visas to travel. Dozens of Russia's best universities that joined Brazilian educational program Science without Borders are ready to welcome students from Brazil. Cultural exchanges have become a regular practice.

During the visit, we want to discuss areas for further developing cooperation and to outline new joint projects in energy, investment, innovation, agriculture, science and technology. We plan to sign a large package of documents relating to a variety of industries, including between specialised agencies, public and private companies, and research and educational institutions.


- The current level of economic and trade relations between Russia and Brazil is far below the potential that has been proclaimed by the countries' leaders. What steps do you consider necessary to accelerate the realization of this potential? What are the obstacles that slow us down and prevent us from taking bilateral trade to a completely new level?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Indeed, despite the good results achieved, there is still an untapped potential in trade and economic cooperation with Brazil. Moreover, there was a decrease in bilateral trade (3.3% in 2013), caused by global economic instability. In order to address the situation we need to diversify our trade ties by increasing the share of high-tech products and engineering goods, as well as by developing cooperation in aviation, energy and agriculture.

Russian companies are interested in the Brazilian market. Our countries' businesses have launched a number of successful investment projects in energy, engineering and pharmaceutical industries. For example, Russia’s Rosneft and the Brazilian HRT oil and gas company are jointly exploring and producing hydrocarbons in the Solimões river basin. In the state of Santa Catarina, the Power Machines corporation is setting up production of hydro turbines of up to 100 MW for their subsequent delivery to the markets of Brazil and other MERCOSUR countries. BIOCAD is developing a research, education and training center in Brazil, designed to produce modern innovative medicines for the treatment of cancer.

I am sure that such projects will help bring our bilateral trade and economic cooperation to a more mature level, which meets the current and future capabilities of our developing countries.


- Brazil will pass the baton of hosting a world football championship to Russia. Are you following the FIFA World Cup? Which part of Brazil's experience in preparing and hosting the event has attracted your attention and can be taken on board while organizing the 2018 World Cup?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: I try to follow the World Cup as far as my work schedule allows. The Latin American countries’ teams have put on a display of football that has real flare and talent. Unfortunately, our team did not leave the group, but, in my opinion, they tried their best.

At the invitation of Brazil and FIFA Presidents, I am going to visit the final match of the Championship to attend the ceremony of passing the baton from Brazil to Russia. In 2018, Russia will host this most popular global sporting event for the first time in its history.

In February-March, we successfully hosted the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi and know exactly what a challenge it is to organise such a huge event. We are analysing Brazil’s experience very carefully. Your country is yet to host the Olympic Games in 2016. Representatives of several ministries and organisations, including the Ministry of Sports and the Russia-2018 Organizing Committee, are in constant contact with Brazilian colleagues. They have already visited Brazil and I am sure they will go there again more than once.

It is worth noting that Russia plans to take the FIFA World Cup a step further in some areas. For example, we passed a federal law establishing a special visa regime for foreigners who help organise the 2018 Championship, and enabling not only the official participants, such as the athletes, referees, coaches and others, but also the fans to visit Russia without visas right before and during the competition. The history of football championships has never seen anything like this before.

I am sure that the World Cup in Brazil will be a bright page in the history of football. I wish the Brazilian organizers every success in completing it. As for us, in 2018, we will do everything possible to give the world an unforgettable football celebration and show genuine Russian hospitality.


- How much attention will be paid during the talks in Latin America to the issues of the modern world order, which enables some players on the international arena to unilaterally claim significantly more extensive rights, including to spy even on those leaders that they call partners and to hack their phones?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: The 21st century world is globalized and interdependent. Therefore, no state or group of countries can unilaterally tackle major international problems and any attempts to build a separate “oasis of stability and security” are doomed to failure.

In order to meet numerous challenges and threats we have to stop trying to impose development models on other countries. This approach has repeatedly proven its ineffectiveness. It does not just fail to facilitate conflict resolution, but leads to instability and chaos in international affairs.

Today, it is especially important to consolidate the international community’s efforts to ensure equal and indivisible security, as well as to resolve disputes trough the application of international law and with the central coordinating role of the UN.

As for the facts of cyber espionage that you mentioned, it not only amounts to overt hypocrisy in relationships between allies and partners, but also a direct violation of the state's sovereignty, an infringement on human rights and an invasion of privacy. We are looking forward to jointly developing an international information security system.

The Sea Launch multinational company was founded in 1995 with the participation of the American Boeing Company, Russia's space rocket corporation Energia, the Norwegian Kvaerner Company, and Ukraine's enterprises such as Yuzhnoye (southern) and Yuzhmash (southern engineering) design bureaus.

This is the first-ever commercial international project for the development and operation of a sea-launch space rocket complex.

The Company and a floating space-launch platform were brought into being with a view to implementing the idea of launching space rockets from the equator.

Thirty-five launches of Zenit-3SL rockets were carried out under the Sea Launch program with 32 of them being successful.

The satellite will make it possible to diversify services being rendered to internet providers, government agencies and transmitting stations.

Odysseus Sea Launch platform (archive)

Overnight to May 27, the Sea Launch Company will loft into space a Zenit-3SL space rocket from the floating platform Odysseus in the Pacific to deploy Eutelsat 3B communications satellite.

Initially, the launch was planned for April 16. However, due to technical reasons the launch had to be postponed.

During a "dry" conveyance to the launch position, technical notes concerning the erection of the rocket were recorded.

The Zenit-3SL rocket consists of the Zenit-2S booster stages made by the Ukraine-based design bureau Yuzhmash (Dnipropetrovsk), and the DM-SL booster made by Russia's space rocket corporation Energia.

The Eutelsat spacecraft is based on the Eurostar E3000 platform. It is made by the Airbus Defense and Space Company and is designed for operation in the commercial C, Ku, and Ka ranges. The satellite will make it possible to diversify services being rendered to internet providers, government agencies, and transmitting stations which operate in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The designed life of the Eutelsat-3B is more than 15 years.

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Ninety percent of people identified in a tranche of communications intercepted by the NSA were ordinary internet users, not foreign surveillance targets, analysis by a US paper says.

Much highly personal information was retained by the NSA, the paper says

The Washington Post says innocents were "caught in a net the National Security Agency had cast for somebody else".

Much of the highly personal information was retained, the paper says, even though it had no intelligence value.

The information was provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The paper said it reviewed some 160,000 emails and instant-messages and 7,900 documents from some 11,000 online accounts, gathered by the NSA between 2009 and 2012.

The Post said that a four-month investigation it carried out revealed that nine out of 10 of the account holders - including many Americans - were not the intended surveillance targets.

Much of the information has, the paper says, a "startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality" telling stories of "love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes".

However the paper says that the intercepted files also contained "discoveries of considerable intelligence value".

These included "fresh revelations about a secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by an ostensible ally, a military calamity that befell an unfriendly power, and the identities of aggressive intruders into US computer networks", it said.

The Post argues that the surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma for President Obama - while there are some discoveries of "considerable intelligence value" there is also "collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the administration has not been willing to address".

Mr Snowden, 30, fled the US in May 2013 and has been living under temporary asylum in Russia.

Edward Snowden is living under temporary asylum in Russia

Last year, he fed a trove of secret NSA documents to news outlets including the Washington Post and the Guardian.

Among other things, the leaks detailed the NSA's practice of harvesting data on millions of telephone calls made in the US and around the world, and revealed the agency had snooped on foreign leaders.

It's hard to tell what's more alarming: that Facebook intentionally manipulated the moods of nearly 700,000 users for research purposes or that the social network doesn't understand why people are sp concerned about it.


In a recently published paper, Facebook revealed that it manipulated the posts some 689,000 users saw on their newsfeeds in order to determine whether it could enact a process of "emotional contagion" through the dissemination of positive and negative information. The study, which was carried out alongside researchers from Cornell and the University of California, concluded that "[e]motions expressed by friends, via online social networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our knowledge, the first experimental evidence for massive-scale emotional contagion via social networks."

Unsurprisingly, the news prompted concerns over the ethics of the study. In response, a Facebook spokeswoman said the aim of the manipulation was "to improve our services and to make the content people see on Facebook as relevant and engaging as possible. A big part of this is understanding how people respond to different types of content, whether it’s positive or negative in tone, news from friends, or information from pages they follow." She added that there is no unnecessary collection of people’s data in connection with these research initiatives and all data is stored securely."

UPDATE: One of the company's three data scientists, Adam Kramer, responded to the controversy with the following Facebook post:

    "OK so. A lot of people have asked me about my and Jamie and Jeff's recent study published in PNAS, and I wanted to give a brief public explanation. The reason we did this research is because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product. We felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative or left out. At the same time, we were concerned that exposure to friends' negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook. We didn't clearly state our motivations in the paper.

    Regarding methodology, our research sought to investigate the above claim by very minimally de-prioritizing a small percentage of content in News Feed (based on whether there was an emotional word in the post) for a group of people (about 0.04% of users, or 1 in 2500) for a short period (one week, in early 2012). Nobody's posts were "hidden," they just didn't show up on some loads of Feed. Those posts were always visible on friends' timelines, and could have shown up on subsequent News Feed loads. And we found the exact opposite to what was then the conventional wisdom: Seeing a certain kind of emotion (positive) encourages it rather than suppresses is.

    And at the end of the day, the actual impact on people in the experiment was the minimal amount to statistically detect it -- the result was that people produced an average of one fewer emotional word, per thousand words, over the following week.

    The goal of all of our research at Facebook is to learn how to provide a better service. Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone. I can understand why some people have concerns about it, and my coauthors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused. In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety.

    While we’ve always considered what research we do carefully, we (not just me, several other researchers at Facebook) have been working on improving our internal review practices. The experiment in question was run in early 2012, and we have come a long way since then. Those review practices will also incorporate what we’ve learned from the reaction to this paper."

[via Forbes]

Those emotions you felt earlier this week when you found out Facebook possibly ran a psychological experiment on you are about to make their return. As has been pointed out, one of the researchers who ran the study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense to look into the contagion of ideas.



When Facebook stopped working for a little while this past week, most blamed it on the site's usual hiccups. However, it was later revealed that it was due to a psychological experiment that the company conducted in order to learn about people's emotions on social media. Six hundred thousand users unwillingly fell subject to manipulated content on their personal news feeds in order to measure how it impacted their behavior.

The study received instant backlash the moment it was revealed, and at the time we didn't even know the full scope. The most disturbing part of the story turns out to be that it is connected to a Department of Defense study called the Minerva Initiative. The initiative funds universities to model the dynamics, risks, and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world.

This isn’t the first time Facebook dabbled in issues of privacy with its users. Facebook also provides user communications to the NSA’s PRISM program. Also, it is widely known that the government uses social networking sites such as Facebook to investigate the opinions people post on social media.

Essentially what is going on here is the federal government using social networking tools to get a better understanding of its citizens and whether or not someone can pose a threat. On the one hand, knowing a person's intentions may help us in the long run. However, how much is too much when it comes to such invasions of privacy?

Facebook users were scandalized last week after discovering that the social network had roped 700,000 of them into a psychological study based on mood manipulation. A Facebook spokesperson defended the study, describing it as an effort to improve its offerings.



Now Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is one of the company's most recognizable faces, has delivered a faux-pology of her own. “This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was; it was poorly communicated,” she said earlier this week while on a trip New Delhi.“And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.”

In other words, Facebook's not sorry for manipulating your mood—just that you found out about it the way you did.

A freight train derailed in western Montana, sending three cars carrying aircraft components down a steep embankment and into the Clark Fork River.

Thirteen of the cars that derailed were carrying freight, mostly aircraft parts. Via Imgur, ​www.imgur.com/gallery/EJVBCzL

Montana Rail Link spokeswoman Lynda Frost says 19 cars from a westbound train derailed Thursday about 10 miles west of Alberton. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the derailment is under investigation.

Thirteen of the cars that derailed were carrying freight, mostly aircraft parts with some soybeans and denatured alcohol. Six were empty. Frost says the alcohol didn't leak and no soybeans spilled. She said crews were working to remove the aircraft parts from the water.

Frost says the components were headed to Renton, Washington.

Trains were being rerouted while repairs are made. Frost says the line is expected to reopen by Saturday evening.

The California Highway Patrol said Friday it is investigating video of one of its officers straddling a woman and punching her in the head as she lay on the shoulder of a Los Angeles freeway.

In this July 1, 2014 image made from video provided by motorist David Diaz, a California Highway Patrol officer straddles a woman while punching her in the head on the shoulder of a Los Angeles freeway.

The woman had been walking on Interstate 10 west of downtown Los Angeles, endangering herself and people in traffic, and the officer was trying to restrain her, CHP Assistant Chief Chris O'Quinn said at a news conference.

Passing Driver David Diaz recorded the Tuesday incident and provided it to media outlets including The Associated Press.

The officer is on administrative leave while the patrol investigates. He has not been identified.

O'Quinn said the incident report listed no injuries for the woman, who would not give her name. She is undergoing psychiatric evaluation, he said.

He said the officer was answering a report of a pedestrian on the freeway. When he found the woman, she started walking down an off-ramp and then turned around, walked back onto the freeway and started wandering into lanes, O'Quinn said. That's when the incident occurred.

O'Quinn said the video "only shows a small part of what transpired."

Diaz, a Los Angeles native who now lives in West LA, told the AP in a phone interview Friday that he arrived when the woman was walking off the freeway. He said she turned around only after the officer shouted something to her.

"He agitated the situation more than helped it," said Diaz, who started filming soon after.

The video shows the officer on top of the woman delivering blows to her face and head. She can be seen wriggling and trying to sit up.

A man in plain clothes — later identified by O'Quinn as an off-duty law enforcement officer — then appears and helps the officer handcuff the woman.

The video caught the attention of local civil rights leaders, who expressed shock and outrage at their own news conference.

"Speaking for the women of this community, we are angry, we are upset," said Lita Herron of the Youth Advocacy Coalition.

O'Quinn said he could not say what prompted the officer to act as he did. But he noted California Highway Patrol officers have a heightened sense of the dangers of being on the freeway compared with a citizen "who is not accustomed to the speed and conditions," especially outside of a car.

"The most dangerous thing that we face is traffic," O'Quinn said.

He added the CHP would answer community concerns, and that an investigative team already has been assembled and has begun its work.


"We are known as an agency that really polices itself," O'Quinn said.

Community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, speaking at the local leaders' news conference, agreed.

"Over the years, CHP has had a very good track record in terms of community relations," Hutchinson said. "That's why this was so shocking."

The next addition to the collection of health apps coming online for smartphones may be a stress test, researchers said at a recent conference.

A 20-year-old woman holds her smartphone as she waits for her friends at a train station before a ceremony in Tokyo

With a simple tube, some software and a saliva sample, people and their doctors can measure levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to new research presented last week at ICE/ENDO 2014, the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society in Chicago.

"We have designed a method by which anyone with a smartphone will be able to measure their salivary cortisol level quickly, easily and inexpensively," said lead investigator Dr. Joel Ehrenkranz, director of diabetes and endocrinology at Intermountain Healthcare in Murray, Utah.

While a commercial lab in the United States may charge up to $50 to run a quantitative salivary cortisol test and take up to a week to provide the results, the smartphone test will cost under $5 and give results in less than about 10 minutes, Ehrenkranz told Reuters Health in an interview.

"Parts of the United States and the rest of the world that lack facilities to measure cortisol will now be able to perform this essential diagnostic test,” he said. “Also, measuring salivary cortisol with this technology will provide a way for individuals to monitor their personal biometric stress levels easily and inexpensively.”

Ehrenkranz and his research team would like to see healthcare providers around the world, especially in low-resource areas, use the smartphone test to help diagnose disorders involving excessive cortisol or depletion of the hormone, and to allow cortisol levels to be monitored easily over time.

They’d also like the public to monitor their own cortisol levels whenever they want. So they designed their device to be inexpensive to manufacture, and easy to use on all cell phones, all platforms and all form factors.

It consists of a case, a light pipe, and a lens, it uses no battery power and it’s unbreakable and reusable, they say.

For the developing world, it needs to be inexpensive, Ehrenkranz said, and it costs only about $1 to make.

Project collaborator Dr. Randall Polson, senior optical engineer in the College of Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, wrote in an email, "We are trying to make sure a skilled 8th-grader – a 12-year-old – can get accurate results."

"The measurement system's smartphone and reader act as a photo studio. . . . The complex and difficult processes are put into the strip chemistry and embedded into the smartphone application, so if you have a charged phone and a test kit you can get accurate results without complicated infrastructure and highly trained technicians," Polson wrote.

To take the test, a person puts a straw-like saliva collector under the tongue, and capillary action wicks the saliva to an assay strip in a cassette that's inserted into a reader; the reader aligns a lens and light diffuser with a smartphone’s camera and flash. A few minutes later, the smartphone image analysis app quantifies the cortisol value.

The abstract for the team’s June 24 presentation is online here: http://bit.ly/1lUb2mD.

Dr. Ehrenkranz said the first screening test for hypercortisolism is salivary cortisol, and that 3 percent of people with type 2 diabetes actually have Cushing's disease - of which excess cortisol would be a sign - but they don't get screened because their doctors don't have access to the technology.

It will also help individuals, Ehrenkranz said. As an example, he cited the 10 percent of people with depression who have psychotic depression, with cortisol levels that rise before the onset of psychosis. Using this device, people at risk for psychotic depression will be able to check their salivary cortisol level every day and take steps to avoid a psychotic break.

The Ministry of Public Health of Thailand plans to introduce the cortisol test later this year, as a consumer product to monitor individuals’ stress, Ehrenkranz said. His team is collecting clinical data to submit to the FDA to gain approval to market the test as a class 2 medical device, which they hope will be granted in 2015.

A stolen Tesla speeding through Los Angeles-area streets went out of control and was torn in half in a fiery crash with other vehicles that injured six people.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy walks past half the remains of a Tesla that wedged between two walls at Congregation Kol Ami synagogue in West Hollywood, California, on Friday, July 4, 2014.

The crash early Friday left the back end of the electric car wedged between two walls of a synagogue in the city of West Hollywood and the front end down the street among other wrecked cars and a toppled traffic signal.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Michael White tells KCAL-TV the Tesla is believed to have been traveling in excess of 100 mph.

Witness Francisco Estrada recorded video of burning debris exploding like fireworks.

The Tesla was reported stolen shortly before 1 a.m. in Los Angeles. Police Officer Christopher No says officers briefly gave chase until their patrol car crashed.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy photographs the remains of a Tesla in West Hollywood, California, on Friday, July 4, 2014. Authorities say several people were injured after a  high-speed chase involving what was reported as a stolen Tesla.

Celebrating the ethnic diversity of America, President Barack Obama said more than two dozen foreign-born service members who became U.S. citizens at a White House ceremony on the Fourth of July are vivid reminders that the country is, and always has been, a nation of immigrants.

President Barack Obama watches at left as Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas administers the oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony for active duty service members and civilians, Friday, July 4, 2014, in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

He said the vast range of backgrounds and experiences that made America a melting pot for more than 200 years also makes it stronger, but that the immigration system has to be retooled for the U.S. to keep its place as the greatest nation on earth.

"If we want to keep attracting the best and the brightest from beyond our shores, we're going to have to fix our immigration system, which is broken," Obama said after 25 service members from 15 countries raised their right hands and pledged allegiance to the United States. "Pass common-sense immigration reform. We shouldn't be making it harder for the best and the brightest to come here, and create jobs here, and grow our economy here. We should be making it easier."

The hot-button issue of immigration is earning renewed attention after the influx to the U.S. of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America. Under U.S. law, they must be sent back across the border with Mexico to their home countries, which has upset immigration advocates who already take issue with Obama's strict enforcement of deportation policy. They want Obama to allow the children to stay; he says he must follow the law.

At the same time, Obama blames House Republicans for delaying action on immigration legislation. A comprehensive measure the Senate passed last summer has been blocked by House leaders who also have done little to advance their own immigration proposals.

Obama announced earlier this week that, as a result of inaction on Capitol Hill, he will pursue non-legislative ways that he can adjust U.S. immigration policy without waiting for Congress to send him a bill.

"I'm going to keep doing everything I can to keep making our immigration system smarter and more efficient so hard-working men and women like all of you have the opportunity to join the American family and to serve our great nation," he said at Friday's ceremony. "So we can be stronger and more prosperous and more whole — together."

In the evening, Obama and his wife, Michelle, were welcoming a larger group of service members, including the new citizens, to an all-American barbecue on the South Lawn, along with prime seating for the fireworks on the National Mall.

"Together, all of you remind us that America is and always has been a nation of immigrants," he told those at the naturalization ceremony. He noted that they had signed up "to fight and potentially to give your life for a country that you didn't fully belong to yet."

Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban who became a naturalized citizen in 1973, administered the oath of allegiance.

Mayorkas also used the ceremony to recognize internationally known celebrity chef Jose Andres for outstanding achievements by a naturalized U.S. citizen. Born in Spain, the 44-year-old Andres became a citizen last November and is spending his first July Fourth as an American citizen.


Andres serves on the boards of the DC Central Kitchen and the L.A. Kitchen, and does philanthropic work through his World Central Kitchen. He runs restaurants in California, Nevada, Florida, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Andres, an active immigration advocate, has prepared meals for White House and other Obama administration events, while Obama and the first lady have dined at some of Andres' restaurants in Washington.

Andres also contributed financially to both of Obama's presidential campaigns.

Obama presented Andres with a certificate and invited him to the microphone, but the chef politely declined. Later on Twitter, Andres said: "Humbled to receive Outstanding American by Choice Award. Happy to be part of this great nation!"

Obama had another reason to celebrate on Friday. His oldest daughter, Malia, turned 16.