Features

The Hidden Light of Objects
Mai Al-Nakib
Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2014
Pp. 237

This collection of ten interlinking short stories is Kuwaiti author Mai Al Nakib’s first book. It is no surprise to learn that it won the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s 2014 First Book Award, for her writing is extraordinary. It would be inadequate (though not wrong) to describe her prose as lyrical. With singular word choice and unpredictable syntax, she creates situations and images that are both electrifying and evocative. One suspects it is not only her mastery of the writing craft, but her vision, her way of viewing human experience, that makes her prose so luminous, so full of emotional impact.

It is this evocative quality that connects the book title with the characters’ emotional lives — their memories, their impulses to live to the hilt, to love passionately, to write, which are often triggered by an innate object which takes on a life of its own. Evocation is Nakib’s strategy for illuminating the magic in the mundane, and for structuring the collection. Objects and characters appear and reappear in successive stories, from different angles or times, but always emotionally charged. Sometimes the connection is quite straightforward, like for the narrator of the first story who has collected objects since she was a child, concocting stories about them: “I don’t necessarily have to save, own, or touch the object. Spotting it, even fleetingly, is usually enough. But once in a while I stroke the object methodically, my fingers creating an invisible grid around it, then cradle it possessively in my arms to feel the story enter me directly.” (p. 7)

In other stories, the role of the object is more oblique. Sometimes, it creates an enigmatic aura of myth or legend, though the stories are all grounded in reality. In all cases, the objects denote emotional ties among people, even ones they may be unaware of. “Story objects are cobwebs across space and time. When you think it has never happened to anyone else ever before, a story object proves you wrong… Most people’s stories are hidden away. Objects may provide the only chance — unlikely, impossible though it may be — to unravel kept secrets”. (p. 10) 

In “The Hidden Light of Objects,” many of Nakib’s characters dance on a precipice between exhilaration and despair, jumping to seize a moment of joy but always in danger of falling back into the morass of dullness or sorrow, “the hidden light” having eluded them, their dreams dashed. Some are children still full of wonder; others are teenagers seeking love or thrills at half-elicit, Western-style parties; still others are middle aged and saddled with regret. Many are outsiders due to having transgressing social norms, or striving so hard to escape the ordinary, or by virtue of events beyond their control. 

Some don’t seem like outsiders at all, but they have a secret side, like Mina, a particularly bright, sensitive girl who stumbles into being a writer by recording random objects that attract her attention. “By the time Mina turned fourteen, the diary was her second skin, her life lived twice”. (p. 61)

She began to craft real and imaginary encounters; writing became essential for carving out the life she wanted for herself. “I must create a life to look back on, a life I can search for in the future… I must live my life then write about it. Or maybe I should write my life then live it.” (p. 64)

But she was “a young girl living at cross-purposes with a crusty society”. Chronicling her real perceptions, be they fact or fiction, presented her with an unsolvable dilemma. (p. 68)

Though politics is not the subject of these stories, it is the ever-present context, which Nakib obviously cares deeply about. Early on, she locates her stories “in our corner of the world, shattered in shards”. (p. 2)

There are frequent references to war, to smart bombs that target babies, to the pollution of burning oil that kills fish and causes cancer. A whole story is devoted to the pain of a family whose mother is kidnapped and imprisoned in Iraq at the end of the 1991 war, which is posited as a turning point in Kuwaiti lives. Another story highlights Kuwaitis’ (and by extension, Arabs’) conflicted relations with America, while two others centre on Palestinians who, contrary to most of the other characters, might crave a life of normality, but are caught in an endless cycle of violence. 

The story behind the stories is the loss of innocence involved in Kuwait’s transition from a traditional desert society with a trading port open to the world, into an oil-driven economy where profit alone trumps tradition. Thus, modernity rushes ahead in material terms, while social change and personal freedom lag behind. “The Hidden Light of Objects” is a brave, powerful and original way of linking the personal with the political.

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft is putting its machine brains into a Liebherr refrigerator.

The US technology giant and Liebherr are collaborating on a new “SmartDeviceBox” that take the kitchen appliance beyond cooling comestibles to reminding people what they need at the market, Microsoft principal data scientist T.J. Hazen said in a blog post Friday.

The box is an internet-connected module that fits inside refrigerators and freezers.

Microsoft is putting machine vision capabilities to work to enable boxes to recognise milk cartons, ketchup bottles and other food inside refrigerators, according to Hazen.

The SmartDeviceBox uses cameras and object recognition technology to track what is in a refrigerator, keeping an inventory list, so that can be accessed through applications tailored for smartphones powered by Android, Apple or Windows software, Microsoft news centre staff member Athima Chansanchai said in an online post.

 “In the near future, Liebherr refrigerators will help you shop and plan meals through intelligent food management,” Chansanchai said.

WASHINGTON – Used incorrectly, laser pointers can damage the retina of the eye and may cause some irreversible vision loss, according to researchers who treated four boys for these injuries. 

Doctors, teachers and parents should be aware that this can happen, and limit children’s use of laser pointers, the authors write.

“This was initially thought of as a never event, that never happened,” said senior author Dr David R. P. Almeida of VitreoRetinal Surgery, PA, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “But we have four cases so it does happen sometimes,” though it’s still unusual.

The authors report on two 12-year olds, one nine-year-old and one 16-year-old who came to a medical centre with central vision loss and “blind spots” within hours to days after looking into or playing with a green or red laser pointer. 

In one case, the boy looked at the reflection of a laser pointer in a mirror. Two others simply pointed the lasers at themselves, and the fourth was engaged in a “laser war” with a friend.

The researchers report in Paediatrics that three of the boys had potentially irreversible, although relatively mild, vision loss. One boy’s vision continued to worsen two weeks after the injury and eventually decreased to 20/40 best corrected visual acuity in both eyes, which is at or close to the limit for obtaining a driver’s license in most US states.

“Long-term outcomes for these patients will be pretty mild vision loss,” Almeida said.

“Males may horse around with things more, or we just happened to have boys in our series,” Almeida told Reuters Health by phone. Injuries could be just as likely for girls.

He advises parents to be careful about where they buy laser pointers, as some retailers may not list the power rating or may list it incorrectly, and to limit use for kids under 14. 

Most consumer laser pointers fall under Class II or Class IIIA level of safety according to the American National Standard Institute, with a power output of five milliwatts or less. But Class 3B or Class 4 level lasers may emit up to 500 milliwatts or more and these lasers may cause immediate eye hazard when viewed directly, Almeida and his coauthors write. 

Retinal tissue in the back of the eye leads to the brain, and it has no ability to regenerate after tissue loss, Almeida said.

“One patient developed bleeding and needed an injection in the eye,” which can be particularly unpleasant for children, he said.

Kids may use laser pointers as long as they avoid improper use, Almeida said. 

“Unsupervised use of these laser pointer devices among children should be discouraged, and there is a need for legislation to limit these devices in the pediatric population,” he and his coauthors write. 

Focusing only on one sport, year-round, can increase kids’ risk of injury and burnout, according to a clinical report from the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP).

Authors of the guidance document, Dr Joel S. Brenner and the AAP Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, advise paediatricians and parents to keep in mind that the primary focus of sports for young athletes should be to have fun and learn lifelong physical activity skills. Playing multiple sports, at least until puberty, decreases the risk of injury, stress and burnout, they add.

Specialising at a later age, perhaps in the late teens, may be a better route to accomplishing athletic goals than specialising earlier in life, upping the odds of lifetime sports involvement, lifetime physical fitness and potentially elite participation, the report concludes.

“As they note, early specialisation is in most instances unnecessary and can contribute adversely to social, emotional, and physical (eg. chronic over-use injuries) development,” said Shane V. Caswell, professor of athletic training at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia, who was not involved in the report.

Kids who have specialised in a single sport should discuss their goals with parents or coaches, according to the guidance statement published in Paediatrics. Taking at least three months off their specialised sport per year, and one to two days off per week, allows for physical and psychological recovery.

Young athletes who train intensively should be closely monitored for physical and psychological growth and nutritional status, the authors recommend. 

“This article highlighted the darker side of youth sports, the overuse injuries that we’re seeing from children simply doing too much,” said Dr Avery Faigenbaum, professor at The College of New Jersey, who researches exercise interventions in public schools.

In recent decades, kids have started to specialise in one sport very early in life in hopes of playing professionally, but the science says that diversifying sports participation makes kids more likely to be successful and to stick with the sport, Faigenbaum, who was not involved with the report, told Reuters Health. 

“That message from science and practice is not reaching patients,” he said.

Sports should be fun and help kids make friends and learn new skills, he said. Specialising too early can decrease creativity, he said.

“If you only play baseball, and get really good at baseball, the same muscles, tendons and ligaments get stressed over and over again,” leading to overuse injuries, which are fully preventable, Faigenbaum said.

“It’s a sign of bad training, the child was doing too much, not exposed to a variety of activities with adequate rest,” he said. 

It’s an incredibly powerful combination. Computer processors, advanced audiovisuals, virtually infinite storage of data everywhere, advanced programming languages and of course global networking, both cabled and wireless, the possibilities that their combination generate are limitless.

Applying the above ingredients to the recipe, new applications — or apps if one prefers — are introduced every day and one has hardly the time even to read about them. Some are short lived while others become global phenomena, depending on public acceptance and usage.

Alongside huge success stories like for instance WhatsApp instant messenger and the exponentially growing dependence on cloud storage usage, the most striking, the trendiest apps are those that rely on surveillance cameras. 

Thanks to falling prices, to greatly improved image quality and simple connectivity to all networks, surveillance cameras are everywhere. With the typical, average model costing between JD40 and JD60, terrific high definition image, infrared night vision so efficient that the camera can virtually see in near total darkness, consumers and professionals just love them.

At home or at work, indoor or outdoor, in most public places, whether surveillance is justified or not, there is a clear invasion of these cameras everywhere; not forgetting police traffic surveillance units that are found on most streets today, for speed or for security control.

The networking alone is priceless. From your smartphone, and wherever you may be in the world, you can see a live feed of the images captured by the camera you installed in your house living room. It’s simple, easy and inexpensive. And of course it can be noise or motion triggered so as to work only when there is a threat of any kind in your house or anything unusual going on.

However, there is even trendier than trendy “dummy” surveillance cameras. Intelligent cameras are on their way to impress you even more and take you faster to the future of high-tech.

It is actually not the camera itself that is becoming brainy, but the software post-processing that it performed on the images after they are taken.

In a first phase images are analysed, faces recognised and the entire scene decrypted, including context, location, background, sound, language detection, and so forth. Most of the technology is already available. Facebook for instance has instant, automatic face recognition and geotagging.

Once images are analysed and understood by the app, as surely as if not better than a human being would, decisions and actions are taken — and this where the truly futuristic part comes in.

An example. An intelligent surveillance camera installed in your living room will be able to tell who in your absence has entered the house, at what time of day, and what the person is doing, before alerting you with a message or a prompt on your smartphone. A burglar trying to crack a safe or to force-open a drawer will not trigger the same alert as a relative of yours (that the camera would of course recognise) coming to water the plants. Eventually the camera may send a red alert to the nearest police station in the first and just a gentle text message of information to your smartphone in the second.

The variations are open to imagination. In the streets such analysis and possible subsequent action will help detect abnormal activity and prevent crimes, for instance.

Giant groups like Time Warner Cable and Huawei have solutions that can be purchased and implemented now, not tomorrow.

Intelligent surveillance cameras are nothing but a step further towards improved implementation of artificial intelligence in its broad meaning, and towards real-life, consumer domestic robots.

This month I arrived at two personal milestones simultaneously. One was that I had now lived for six continuous years in the same city- Amman, and the second, that I completed 300 weeks of writing my column — Talespin. Both the landmarks occurred for the first time in my life, and filled me with sheer and utter delight. 

In our wonderful age of abbreviations, a few months after I began Talespin, some of my readers started referring to it as TS. I had to carefully scrutinise the letters to make sure it was not called BS, the full form of which is exactly what your imagination implies. 

Initially, the feedback was slow. The reason was that not too many people got to read it because the online version of the newspaper was erratic. Subsequently, the technical team at the office smartened up, and got the website running smoothly. I also learned, after several patient tutorials by our daughter, to attach the link on my Facebook wall.

Soon, this self-deprecatory piece, detailing the life of an expatriate woman in an alien country, caught the fancy of my friends in the social media — mostly my school and college mates. The enjoyment they got out of reading my column almost matched mine, at writing it. The outpouring of commentary that came my way thrilled me to bits. They not only identified and empathised with it but every week, gave me fresh ideas, for the next one. It was almost as if, without even asking for it, an entire community was assisting me in a joint brainstorming exercise. It amused and scared me at the same time. 

At one point, when I wrote about the loss of my mum, TS became practically like an interactive medium. I got such long e-mails from readers recounting their own individual tragedies that I became a part of their lives and relived those moments with them.

Over the last six years, the only time I missed a deadline happened when I was hospitalised with high fever. Even then, I asked the nurse to pass me my laptop, but she thought I was hallucinating, and struck an intravenous needle into my wrist instead. As the infusion of medicines reached my bloodstream, I stopped fighting the drowsiness and slept off. 

In one instance, I was writing a travel piece on an airplane, literally in the middle of my journey, when an airhostess surprised me with a glass of champagne. Those days I had a picture byline which made it easier for the readers to recognise me. She loved TS she said, and the joy this unexpected praise gave me was better than the effervescent tumbler of bubbly she gifted me with. 

How would I be celebrating TS’ anniversary? I don’t know but I will definitely start by thanking some of my loyal readers who are scattered all over the globe. I would not be inspired enough to write week after week without their steady motivation. To this vast extended family, I express my most sincere gratefulness. 

“Did you know TS is six years old today?” I asked my spouse over lunch. 

“Who is this?” my husband was surprised.

“My creation,” I declared. 

 “Your child?” he was stunned. 

“You can say that,” I smiled. 

“You adopted a baby? Holy Saint!” he exclaimed. 

“Not HS! It’s TS!” I corrected him. 

“Talespin?” he guessed. 

“Exactly,” I giggled. 

“Happy birthday TS,” he heaved a sigh of relief. 

LOS ANGELES — “Don’t Breathe”, a twisty story of a group of teenage delinquents who pick the wrong house to burglarise, dominated the late summer box office, debuting to a potent $26.4 million and topping charts. It joins a long list of recent horror films such as “The Purge: Election Year”, “The Conjuring 2”, “Lights Out”, and “The Shallows” that have all found success with audiences. It’s a genre that’s particularly attractive to studios, because these films don’t require much in the way of special effects or star power, making them cheaper to produce than comic book adventures and science-fiction fantasies.

“These are the films of bean counters’ dreams,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst at ComScore. “They are profit machines and even when they’re poorly reviewed, people line up for them.”

“Don’t Breathe” was backed by Sony’s Screen Gems and Steve Bersch’s Stage 6 Films, and cost less than $10 million to produce. It more than doubled its production budget in a single weekend, after rolling out across 3,051 locations. The film follows a gang of thieves who find out that the blind man whose house they’ve targeted isn’t as helpless as he appears. Instead of making off with loot, they are pitted in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.

Sony screened the film at SXSW and Comic-Con in order to build buzz. It also relied heavily on digital platforms to drive enthusiasm for the picture, debuting spots on Snapchat, crafting animated gifs for Twitter and Facebook, and launching interactive mobile apps.

“This film is going to be a big moneymaker for us,” said Rory Bruer, Sony’s distribution chief. “We knew we had something special here. This is a film that’s all about keeping people jumping out of their seats and holding on to the person next to them.”

“Don’t Breathe” displaced “Suicide Squad” from its perch atop charts. After finishing in first for three consecutive weekends, the super villain mash-up had to settle for second place this weekend with about $12.2 million at 3,582 locations. The Warner Bros. release has earned $283 million.

Among new releases, Lionsgate bowed “Mechanic: Resurrection”, a follow-up to the 2011 cult hit “The Mechanic”, in 2,258 locations, where it earned $7.8 million. That’s less than the first “Mechanic’s” $11.4 million domestic debut. The sequel centres on an assassin (Jason Statham) who is lured out of retirement for a series of hits. It co-stars Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh and Jessica Alba.

Fans of the 44th president got a tour down memory lane with “Southside with You” from Roadside Attractions and Miramax. The romantic drama looks at Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date, debuting to $3.1 million from 813 sites. It will have a modest increase in screens next weekend. The film hits theatres as popular opinion of the Obama administration continues to rise, but the improvement in the president’s standing didn’t factor into release plans, the studios say.

“It helps, but we weren’t banking on it,” said Howard Cohen, Roadside Attractions’ co-president. “If it had been the reverse, it might have given us pause, but it’s not like we read the approval ratings and said, ‘ok, let’s go to 800 screens.”

The Weinstein Company countered with the boxing drama “Hands of Stone”, a biopic about Panamanian fighter Roberto Duran, that opened to $1.7 million at 810 locations. The indie label plans to expand the film to roughly 2,500 locations over Labour Day. Executives at the company said they were particularly pleased by the film’s A CinemaScore rating; a sign that the film is being embraced by those who see it.

“People love the movie,” said David Glasser, the Weinstein Company’s COO and president. “The conversation around the movie has begun and we think it’s going to continue to keep building.”

In third place, Focus Features’ “Kubo and the Two Strings” added $7.8 million to its $24.8 million domestic haul. Sony’s “Sausage Party” nabbed fourth position, picking up roughly $7.5 million to bring its total to just under $80 million. Rounding out the top five, Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” snagged $7.3 million driving its stateside gross to $76.2 million.

In limited release, Sony Pictures Classics bowed “The Hollars”, a family dramedy that marks “The Office” star John Krasinski’s feature film directorial debut, on four screens where it made $46,068, for a per-theatre average of $11,517.

Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “Ben-Hur” solidified its status as one of the year’s biggest bombs joining the likes of “Ghostbusters” and “The Huntsman: Winter’s War”. The biblical epic dropped 60 per cent to $4.6 million, bringing its total to $19.6 million. Rival studios estimate that the film could lose $100 million, while sources close to the film peg that figure as between $60 million to $75 million. MGM put up 80 per cent of the film’s cost.

Overall revenues were up 31 per cent from the year-ago period; a weekend that saw the debut of the religious drama “War Room” and the Owen Wilson thriller “No Escape”. After a sluggish start and a series of high-profile bombs such as “The BFG” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, ticket sales have rebounded. Receipts are running neck-in-neck with last year and some think that this summer’s revenues could be the second highest in history when not factoring in inflation.

That’s somewhat deceptive, however. Ticket prices have hit record highs, which are helping to boost revenues. As it currently stands, ticket sales could be the lowest in roughly two decades, according to Box Office Mojo.

“These films have no longevity,” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “Hollywood gave audiences what it thought they wanted — a bunch of sequels and reboots — and guess what, it didn’t work. So they have to ask themselves, what can we offer now?”

The last naturally aspirated holdout in the Mercedes-Benz AMG model range using the performance sub-brand’s gloriously brutal, progressive and long-legged big displacement 6.2-litre V8 — and among the smaller AMGs available — the outgoing AMG C63 was a drivers’ favourite. However, with the introduction of a new base C-Class line launched in 2014, the inevitable has come to pass, but the new smaller displacement turbocharged AMG C63 is no disappointment but a worthy successor.

Introduced in 2015 and driven at the Yas Marina F1 circuit in Abu Dhabi earlier in the year in its more powerful S guise, the new AMG C63 picks up where its predecessor left off. Slightly larger yet lighter and more efficient but with slightly more potent performance, the new C63 S is prodigiously powerful as expected of an AMG, but like its predecessor, remains one of the brand’s most nimble, fluent and rewarding cars.

Urgent aesthetic

Based on the garden-variety C-Class’ elegantly flowing lines, curves and convex body surfacing, the C63’s aesthetic disposition is distinctly more aggressive and urgently dynamic. With form following function, the C63’s front section 54mm longer to accommodate its V8 engine. A larger, deeper and lower front apron features A-shaped wings to direct cooling airflow and lower air splitter to reduce lift, while twin-blade grille slats and sharp fin-like twin-dome bonnet lend a sense of momentum.

Benefitting from increased weight-saving aluminium construction, the C63 is, however, structurally strengthened for additional stresses, while adaptive engine mounts reconcile refinement and handling precision. Flared wheel arches accommodate a wider track and massive grippy front 245/35ZR19 and rear 265/35ZR19 tyres. With lower sills and decorative side ports, the rear features a three-fin air diffuser with integrated quad tailpipes and boot-lip spoiler for downforce. The more powerful C63 S is distinguished by chrome and glossy black detailing.

Devastating delivery

Displacing 4 litres with twin-turbochargers located between its two cylinder banks to drastically minimise turbo lag with short gas flow paths for quick spooling, the C63 S’ direct injection V8 engine is responsive off-the-line and brutally abundant once on boost. More powerful, torquier and quicker, if not quite as progressive in unlocking power and torque than naturally-aspirated C63 saloon predecessors, the new engine is nevertheless among the most fluent turbocharged engines and delivers precise throttle control.  

Muscular in mid-range where it pulls with freight train-like authority and indefatigability, the C63 S develops a mighty 516lb/ft torque throughout a broad 1,750-4,500rpm band underwriting power accumulation to a maximum 503BHP at 5,500-6,250rpm. Devastatingly quick on circuit with effortlessly vicious on-the-move reflexes and bellowing soundtrack, it runs the 0-100km/h benchmark in 4-seconds flat, while an easily attainable electronically governed nominal 250km/h top speed can be optionally de-restricted to 290km/h. Fuel efficiency is meanwhile considerably improved to 8.4l/100km combined.

Reassuring yet agile

Driven on track the C63 S proved firmly settled and reassuringly stable at high speed straights and through fast sweeping bends, with effective and resilient brakes, as expected of an AMG Autobahn stormer. Meanwhile, eager and agile through tighter successive corners and chicanes, the C63 S turns in tidy and crisp, with grippy front wheels and meaty, direct and precise, if clinical, steering. Meanwhile, taut body control with dampers in firmest settings keeps the C63 flat through corners. 

Grippy at the rear in the dry, the C63 is nevertheless adjustable on throttle, allowing one to intuitively tighten by pivoting momentum rearwards. A limited-slip rear differential channels power across the rear axle so that the C63 effectively puts power out of dry and wet corners. And with precise throttle control and balanced chassis one was able to fluently and intuitively carry lurid full power drifts and slides in a controlled manner during a low traction skid plate session.

Appointment and adjustability

Highly adjustable for road and track, the C63 S now has a more direct and responsive 7-speed wet-clutch automated gearbox, which features five combined gearbox response and driving modes that also alter adaptive dampers stiffness, steering assistance level, electronic stability control intervention sensitivity, stop/start function and exhaust note. Individual mode allows one to independently alter various settings, while manual paddle-shifter mode is more engaging. A Race Start function automatically manages engine, gearbox and stability functions for best acceleration from standstill.  

Classy and sporty with quality leathers materials and textures, the C63 S features and upright stitched leather dashboard with five circular vents. A practical and well-appointed cabin features a focused and highly adjustable driving position, carbon-fibre and metallic trim, thick flat-bottom steering wheel, good forward visibility and clear instrumentation including 5.5-inch multi-function screen. The well equipped C63 features a large tablet-like infotainment screen, touchpad controller and numerous convenience, safety and assistance systems including adaptive cruise control and collision prevention assistance.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo V8 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 83 x 92mm

Compression ratio: 10.5:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, variable timing, direct injection

Boost pressure: 1.2-bar

Gearbox: 7-speed automated clutch, rear-wheel-drive, limited-slip differential

Gear ratios: 1st 4.38:1; 2nd 2.86:1; 3rd 1.92:1; 4th 1.37:1; 5th 1:1; 6th 0.82:1; 7th 0.73:1; R1 3.42:1; R2 2.23:1

Final drive: 2.82:1

0-100km/h: 4 seconds

Maximum speed: 250km/h (electronically governed) De-restricted to 290km/h

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 503 (510) [375] @5,500-6,250rpm

Specific power: 126.3BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 290.75BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 516 (700) @1,750-4,500rpm

Specific torque: 175.79Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 404.62Nm/tonne

Combined fuel urban/extra-urban/consumption: 11/6.9/8.4l/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 195g/km

Fuel capacity: 66 litres

Length: 4,750mm

Width: 1,839mm

Height: 1,435mm

Wheelbase: 2,839mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.33

Headroom, F/R: 1,039/942mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,059/894mm

Boot capacity: 435 litres

Kerb weight: 1,730kg

Steering: Speed sensitive variable power-assisted, rack and pinion

Turning circle: 11.29 metres

Suspension: Multi-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs, F/R, 390 x 36mm/360 x 26mm

Tyres, F/R: 245/35ZR19/265/35ZR19

WASHINGTON — Slowly but surely, the Internet is becoming a hostile place.

As wondrous as the Internet is — with its 3 billion global users — increasingly, danger lurks. Armies of hackers maraud for personal data. Unknown forces invade privacy, installing hidden bugs. Nations engage in low-grade versions of cyber warfare.

Those who believe that some sort of disaster may be in the offing have coined the phrases “Cyber 9/11” and “Digital Pearl Harbour” to suggest a surprise attack that might change our world. Maybe it’ll be terrorists threatening to bring down the power grid. Or hackers monkeying with November election results.

Are the fears warranted? Some experts say they’re overblown. Yet, the issue reflects how the Internet has become the world’s superstructure, knitting the citizenry together. The “Internet of things” is swiftly evolving: the thermostat, the smart TV, the toaster, the locks on doors, all interconnected. Then there are cars. An estimated 70 per cent of automobiles will be connected to the Internet by the end of the decade.

If cybersecurity is not fortified, experts say, aggression and hostility could steadily overtake the Web. The “Internet of things” may morph, as one recent study forecasts, into the “weaponisation of everything”. Imagine elevators going haywire, or pacemakers under the control of extortionists.

Other scenarios are possible, of course. The Internet is in its infancy. Like other technologies, simple but firm steps may make it safer.

The development of the automotive industry, in fact, could provide a map forward.

“People were driving cars on the road for 100 years before the first seat belt law was introduced in 1968. After that law, the number of crashes that ended in fatalities dropped sharply,” said Jeremy N. Galloway, a cybersecurity expert with Atlassian, an Australian software firm. “The Internet is very similar.”

“We haven’t invented the cyber version of the seat belt yet, so we have many more painful accidents to come. We are progressing incrementally, getting better security every day, but fundamentally, the Internet is a place where you need to be cautious, careful and sceptical.”

For many users, the risks appear remote when weighed with the benefits.

“The equation is still clear. For every one of us, the advantages of the Internet are much bigger than the potential risk,” said Amichai Shulman, co-founder of Imperva, a data security company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.

Yet, the power of cyberattacks to hurt companies — and even governments — is already apparent. Israel and the United States are believed to have been behind the sophisticated Stuxnet virus that took down key components of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

When the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked in 2014, US intelligence officials within a month blamed North Korea.

Hackers in mid-2015 carried off the greatest theft of personal data in history, stealing vast troves from the Office of Personnel Management on some 21 million current and former federal employees, their relatives and contractors.

The Kremlin has been blamed in the news media for the theft of some 20,000 e-mails from the Democratic National Committee that first came to light in June, forcing Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the chair of the DNC and leading to fears of Russian meddling in US elections. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, called the hack an “electronic Watergate”, evoking the legendary break-in that eventually led former president Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.

Barely a day goes by now without reports of an attack. This month, cybercriminals breached cash register software offered by computer giant Oracle, and other hackers stole credit card data from guests at 20 hotels in 10 states, including Hyatt, Sheraton, Marriott, Westin and others.

Even hardened targets get hit amid signs of global cyber conflict. The nation’s top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) suffered an apparent breach, and the alleged hackers last weekend published some of its most secret cyber tools and weapons on the Internet, a major embarrassment. In Moscow, the government-financed RT television network, once known as Russia Today, said it had faced “massive attacks” this week in sustained digital assaults intended to overwhelm its computer networks.

Concerned about ever bigger cyberattacks, Microsoft in June called for establishment of a global UN-type body of technical experts from governments, the private sector, academics and civil society to ascertain who is behind major cyberattacks.

Those paid to track cyber intrusions and hack attacks say that the hostility that pervades the Internet is vast. Despite the problems, they say it is not yet beyond repair.

“We can combat the bad stuff. We can defend the resources we have. We can adapt where needed. We can’t, however, do nothing. If we give up on protecting resources, data and people on the Internet, then we will end up with an irreparable, and ultimately historical, Internet,” said Tim Erlin, senior director for security and risk strategy at Tripwire, a Portland, Ore.-based company that provides threat protection software tools.

Some see the Web as reaching an inflection point at which concerted action must be taken by individuals, private companies and governments around the world.

“The Internet has tremendous potential, but that potential’s dark side is just starting to rear its ugly head. We need to act now,” the former Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, wrote in a blog post on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations this month.

Lior Div, a former member of the Israeli military’s elite cybersecurity Unit 8200, knows a thing or two about cyber’s dark side. Let your imagination run wild, and Div says it’s already a reality.

“What I don’t like to do is spread fear,” cautioned Div, who is the chief executive of Cybereason, a Boston-based company that offers military-grade cyber detection. Div spoke on the sidelines of the Black Hat hackers’ convention in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Div said hostile actions are rampant on the Internet but noted that large-scale attacks — ones designed to blow out power grids or carry out major disruptions that could leave hundreds of fatalities — haven’t occurred.

“People are thinking of cyber as an atomic bomb. … The thing about cyber is you can be much more precise and exact,” he said.

The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant
Edited by Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin
London: Hurst and Company, 2015
Pp. 384

In this book, fourteen scholars, mostly Europe-based, survey the trajectory of the Alawis from their mystical origins as followers of Muhammad Ibn Nusayr in 8th century Iraq, to state-power holders in modern Syria. In the process, one gains a sense of Syria’s history per se and of some of its other ethnic, religious and regional communities’ role therein.

While most of the contributors relate their historical analysis to the causes and features of the current war, they eschew heated, partisan views and sectarian labels in favour of objectivity. In the words of co-editor Michael Kerr: “Viewing the war for Syria primarily through the lens of either third party intervention or sectarianism distorts the complexity of the Alawi community’s contemporary experience and its diverging responses to it… Furthermore, one cannot catalogue, connect and affirm the Alawi community’s historical trajectory or its ancient doctrinal religious and tribal identities neatly with either the struggle for Syria today or its part in it”. (pp. 1-2, 7)

Like many other contributors, Raymond Hinnebusch argues that Alawi identity is not monolithic: “multiple possible identities exist in Syria, ranging from the narrowest — clan, tribe, and sect — to broader party, class and state identifications, to supra-state identities… several identities can be held simultaneously” and they can change since they are shaped by material reality… “agency also matters, namely the promotion of identities by political entrepreneurs”. (pp. 107-8)

In another chapter, Max Weiss suggests rethinking the “mosaicist” and “sectarianist” approaches “that have obfuscated some of the country’s most interesting and complex social realities”. (p. 64)

In the view of Leon T. Goldsmith, “To be Alawi means many things to different members of the sect, with multiple sources of overlapping identity including Arab, Muslim, Shi’a, Syrian, Turkish, Lebanese, urban, rural, working class and elite”. (p. 141)

Further evidence of the community’s diversity is presented in Carsten Wieland’s article about Alawis’ role in the secular opposition, historically and in the early stages of the 2011 uprising. 

Several presuppositions about the Alawi community’s history are revisited and partially discredited. The idea that the Alawis were a persecuted minority under Ottoman rule is disputed by Stefan Winter based on archival records from Istanbul and Tripoli. As to the claim that the Alawis collaborated with the French colonial authorities during the Mandate period, this was true of only part of the community. Another part actively rebelled against the French plan to create a separate Alawi state. 

The heart of the matter is how Alawis came to dominate the Syrian state, which hinges on an analysis of their agency in the context of the rise of nationalism, the army and the Ba’ath Party, leading this rural community to seek state positions as a means of social mobility — and, of course, power-seeking on the part of leaders.

Here several ironies come into play as pointed out by Fabrice Balanche: “While underdevelopment and demographic dynamism in the 1950s and 1960s arguably motivated and facilitated the Alawi community’s rise to power, their demographic transition and social promotion were actually significant factors in weakening the Asad state… While former Syrian president Hafez Al Asad’s regime benefited from the poverty of the Alawis, Bashar’s rule has been weakened by the exclusive social promotion of the Alawi community during his tenure”. (p. 79)

Most contributors agree that it was a drive for total control, not sectarianism, which motivated the former president’s state-building strategies whereby trusted Alawis, often kinsmen, were disproportionately appointed to crucial positions in the military and security apparatus. 

Yet, Asad also created a broad coalition, including significant Sunni representation, in the government, Ba’ath Party and economy. The narrowing of the regime’s social base occurred when Bashar instituted neoliberal reforms that privileged investors over its traditional constituencies, thus breaking the social contract that, alongside co-optation and harsh repression of dissent, had underpinned regime stability for decades. 

Still, none of the contributors contend that the economic situation was the main cause of the war.

The book concludes with a very interesting chapter evaluating the viability of the Syrian regime’s repressive strategy for overcoming the insurgency. There are no easy answers to be found in this book; the contributors do not pretend to have solutions to the conflict, but their powerful, fact-based arguments dispel any notion that the Syrian war is primarily a sectarian conflict, thus paving the way for a more fruitful approach.