10. november 2002

Understanding Civil War In 2001 there were 34 ongoing armed conflicts in the world. Only one of them (India/Pakistan) was a "classical" war between nation-states. The rest were civil wars Dispite this fact, by far the most research on warfare has concentrated on interstate wars. International attempts to issue legal guidelines for armed conflicts (e.g. the Geneva Convention) has also to a large degree overlooked civil wars. The need for knowledge about how to avoid and stop such conflicts is obviously acute. This summer, the Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) was established in Oslo, Norway. Its objective is to gather eminent scholars from different countries and disciplines to do a long-term study of the causes of civil war, what drives them, and of course how to bring them to an end. From a Norwegian article on forskning.no. 11:48:53 PM    comment []

Oh the irony... Anti-war protests in Brussells, Belgium, turned violent when a group of protesters started breaking windows in American businesses and clashed with police. 11:26:15 PM    comment []

On this Day On November 10, 1871, Henry Morton Stanley, an American journalist who had been sent out to find Scottish explorer and missionary Dr David Livingstone, finally found the man he had been searching for. Upon meeting the man who had been lost to his homeland for years, he uttered the immortal words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" 10:48:27 PM    comment []

Britan Braces for Terror Attack Amid warnings from a lot of sources that a new massive Al Quada terror attack may be imminent, Britain puts fighter jets on standby and creates a Army reservist domestic rapid reaction force. The country is also boosting its ability to cope with civilian injuries in case of disaster. 8:26:58 PM    comment []

Secular Blasphemy Now Also in Norwegian As I sometimes feel the need to rant & rave about local developments in my native language, I have opened a category for my Norwegian articles. It is named "Nytt fra vestfronten," which means 'News from the west front,' reflecting that I live in Bergen, (picture) on the west coast of Norway. It also reflects, I guess, that sometimes, blogging is war. I also added a navigator link on the left side of this window to that effect. 7:45:30 PM    comment []

Blogwise I just submitted my blog to Blogwise, which seems to be a good, but quite recent blog directory. It lists blogs by country, language and of course keywords. 5:36:13 PM    comment []

Why Bush Got it Right on Iraq Added my recent blog entry about Bush's hardline politics towards Iraq to my articles section. [read more] 5:21:29 PM    comment []

A Terrorist's Brain The daughter of one of Germany's most dangerous terrorists, Ulrike Meinhof, is fighting for her mother's brain. Ulrike Meinhof (picture) was one of the leaders in the 1970s leftist urban terror group Rotee Arme-Fraktion (Red Army Fraction), perhaps better known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was responsible for bombings and assasinations against industrial leaders. Ulrike Meinhof did, like many of her comrades, commit suicide in prison. According to her daughter Bettina Roehl, herself an accomplished journalist, illicit investigations into the terrorist's brain showed evidence of brain damage following a brain tumor treatment. It is perhaps not a big surprise that the feared terrorist, who unexplainably abandoned a successful carreer as a campaigning journalist to turn to urban guerilla warfare, was mentally damaged. It is more of a surprise that German authorities did not use this information to discredit the terrorists in the 1970s. 1:38:28 PM    comment []

Rapid HIV Test Available The US FDA has approved a 20-minute HIV test for use by health workers. There has long been a demand for a quick and reliable HIV test, since many who have tested themselves fail to come back to get the result. At least 8000 of those test positive every year in the US don't come back to get the result, obviously preferring insecurity to grim knowledge. So far, the OraQuick test is only available for use by health professionals. 11:38:20 AM    comment []

You Read it Here First: Mark Your Calendar Nobody will need to be reminded about the date 9/11-01 again. But how many noticed that the Bali bombing happened on 10/12-02? These have been the two most deadly Al Quada attacks. The Islamist terror network is not known for paying special attention to special dates, so this may well be a coincidence. After all, the Bali blast happened on a Saturday night during high season, surely the 'right time' to attack a nightclub for maximum fatalities.  But I would be a bit nervous about 11/13-03. 11:26:47 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2002 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.12.02; 02:50:50.