French rating downgraded; More than a juicy CIA scandal; Rights groups flay 'killer robots; Teenage boys and muscular obsession

1 French rating downgraded (BBC) Credit ratings agency Moody's has downgraded France from its top rating. The country's debt has been reduced from AAA to AA1 and has kept its negative outlook, meaning it could be downgraded again. Moody's blamed the risk of a Greek exit from the euro, stalled economic growth and the chances that France will have to contribute to bailing out other countries.

Moody's said the primary reason for the downgrade had been France's "persistent structural economic challenges" and the threats they pose to economic growth and the government's coffers. "These include the rigidities in labour and services markets, and low levels of innovation, which continue to drive France's gradual but sustained loss of competitiveness and the gradual erosion of its export-oriented industrial base," Moody's said.

2 More than a juicy CIA scandal (Eric S Margolis in Khaleej Times) The US has lost one war and is fast losing a second, yet what really upsets Americans seems to be a juicy sexual scandal; beautiful female general groupies; US brass in Tampa, Florida, living like potentates; the FBI investigating CIA; and the fall of America’s most important intelligence official, former top general, David Petraeus. What business has FBI in monitoring extra-marital escapades of the military brass — provided they are not bedding Chinese or Russian agents?

UN officials assert that some 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, died due to the US-led blockade under Saddam Hussein. At least another half million died from the US 2003 invasion until 2011. Cost of Iraq: $1.6 to 2.4 trillion; almost 5,000 US soldiers dead, 35,000 seriously wounded.  Some triumph. Petraeus was then sent to work his magic in Afghanistan before returning to Washington to head the CIA.  

Cost of Afghan War: $1 trillion and rising. Afghan dead unknown. US military, some 2,100 dead, 17,000 wounded. The US military has clearly been fought to a standstill in Afghanistan by medieval tribesmen with AK-47’s, reconfirming its name — “graveyard of empires”. As for the military genius of Gen. Petraeus, recall the famous cry of King Pyrrhus, “one more such victory and we are lost”.

3 Rights groups flay ‘killer robots’ (Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian) The use of autonomous drones – "killer robots" that could fire weapons with no human control – must be prohibited by international treaty, human rights campaigners and lawyers have said. Weapons being developed that could choose and attack targets without human intervention should be pre-emptively banned because of the danger they would pose to civilians in armed conflict, they said.

Losing Humanity: the Case Against Killer Robots, a 50-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), warns that fully autonomous weapons would lack human qualities that provide legal and non-legal checks on the killing of civilians. The New York-based campaign group said its report was based on extensive research into the law, technology, and ethics of the proposed weapons.

Such weapons do not yet exist, and major powers, including the US, have not decided to deploy them. But precursors are already being developed. The US, China, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Russia and Britain are engaged in researching and developing such weapons. Many experts predict that full autonomy for weapons could be achieved in 20-30 years or sooner, according to the report.

4 Teenage boys and muscular obsession (Douglas Quenqua in The New York Times) It is not just girls these days who are consumed by an unattainable body image. Pediatricians are starting to sound alarm bells about boys who take unhealthy measures to try to achieve Charles Atlas bodies that only genetics can truly confer. Whether it is long hours in the gym, allowances blown on expensive supplements or even risky experiments with illegal steroids, the price American boys are willing to pay for the perfect body appears to be on the rise.

In a study in the journal Pediatrics, more than 40% of boys in middle school and high school said they regularly exercised with the goal of increasing muscle mass. Thirty-eight percent said they used protein supplements, and nearly 6% said they had experimented with steroids. Over all, 90% of the 1,307 boys in the survey said they exercised at least occasionally to add muscle.

While college-age men have long been interested in bodybuilding, pediatricians say they have been surprised to find that now even middle school boys are so absorbed with building muscles. And their youth adds an element of risk. Just as girls who count every calorie in an effort to be thin may do themselves more harm than good, boys who chase an illusory image of manhood may end up stunting their development, doctors say, particularly when they turn to supplements — or, worse, steroids — to supercharge their results.