6. juni 2003

French troops met with cheers in Congo French troops arrived suddenly to Bunia in eastern Congo, which has been the scene of some of the worst atrocities in what has been described as the worst war since World War II, and were met with shouts of joy from the population. They spearhead a 1,400 men strong EU rapid reaction force that operates under a special UN mandate to attempt to bring an end to ethnic violence. So far, there are no plans to take control over other parts of the country, where the brutality is likely to continue. 4:16:01 PM    comment []

Hear! Hear! Technology analyst Bill Thompson argues that copyright holders have received far too much power at the cost of consumers and other businesses. The court decision that required Verizon to hand over its customers without even a court order gives chilling power to organisations like the RIAA to break ISP's confidentiality without even having pleaded a case in couirt, thanks to the US DMCA. Elsewhere, the situation is not as bleak, but copyright holders are working to persuade the EU to give it similar powers. The losers are everybody else; those without the lobbying power of the recording and film industry. Big Brother may not see you, but a host of malicious little brothers sure do in the legalistic paradise created through lobbying spineless lawmakers. 3:43:48 PM    comment []

WMD: It's all in the spin Hans Blix is a diplomat, and whenever he says something, the listeners always finds something to satisfy preconceived ideas. His latest statements on WMDs in Iraq has been spinned both ways. "Blix: 'Weapons may not exist'" (British ITV) "Iraq may still have WMDs, says Blix" (Glasgow Herald) It's amazing how many headlines have been made by a man saying he has no clue. We already knew that, in fact. "Where are the WMDs?" has been the question on everybody's lips for weeks, and I am quite sure he would have told us earlier if he knew. When Blix finally says in an offical report that he doesn't know either, it's suddenly construed as some sort of damning indictment against the coalition. This is getting too silly. 12:17:21 PM    comment []

Hamas breaks off talks with Palestinian government Hamas has broken off talks with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen over his pledge to end violence. There has been some hope that radical Palestinian groups should at least agree to a ceasefire to see what comes out of the peace plan. 12:06:52 PM    comment []

Early fears of Iraqi WMDs Philip Stephens of the Finanical Times has a few interesting comments on the furore over how Bush and Blair used intelligence reports to support the war against Iraq. I have no idea whether one of Mr Blair's aides "spiced up" the intelligence reports. For what it's worth my own "source" (no self-respecting journalist can be without a personal pet spy these days) says the dispute was about the principle of publishing secret material rather than the content itself. Either way, a glance at what Mr Blair has said about Iraq ever since he became prime minister confirms that British intelligence had already added plenty of seasoning. Unbiased evidence in this respect comes from Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats. Mr Ashdown's diaries record Mr Blair confiding about Iraq as follows: "I have now seen some of the [intelligence] stuff on this. It really is pretty scary. He is very close to some appalling weapons of mass destruction. I don't understand why the French and others don't understand this. We cannot let him get away with it. The world thinks this is gamesmanship. But it's deadly serious." This entirely private conversation did not take place two or three months ago. The date was November 15 1997. Bill Clinton was in the White House, none of us had yet heard of Monica Lewinsky, September 11 was still in the future, and George W. Bush was scarcely a gleam in the eye of Republicans. Even Britain's more excitable broadcasters will be hard put to find a conspiracy there. You can actually find similar concerns shared by Bill Clinton on the other side of the Atlantic. Of course, the political climate then did not allow anybody to do anything about it. 9:07:39 AM    comment []

Fast TCP Most promises of faster Internet requires upgraded equipment and are many years away. An improvement of the existing TCP protocol, imaginatively called Fast TCP, now being developed at California Institute of Technology may be ready for implementation quite soon. In normal TCP, a fundamental Internet protocol, communication consists of packets of data that are sent at a certain speed, and if the transfer fails, the protocol retries transmission at a lower speed. The new protocol allows the system to constantly monitor connections to know what speed it can take. Tests indicate data can be transfered up to 6,000 times faster than normal. 6:48:18 AM    comment []

Aung San Suu Kyi "ambushed" A US State Department official today accused the Burmese junta of staging an "ambush" of "government-affiliated thugs" in wich an unknown number of democracy activists were killed and Suu Kyi were injured, and which was used as a pretext for putting her in custody. Officials from the US embassy in Rangoon have visited the scene of the violence and found evidence of a "premeditated ambush," the state department said. The US is now, along with other countries, weighing their options for harder sanctions against the military junta that rules Burma (Myanmar) in defiance of international opinion and a clear democractic victory in the polls some years back. 5:18:35 AM    comment []

Depleted Uranium scare I have combined material from a number of postings I did on DU back in March into one article. 3:14:33 AM    comment []

Build your own cruise missile! Maybe this is a popular site for terrorists these days. Bruce Simpson of New Zealand has started a project developing his own DIY cruise missile for parts that can be openly bought over the Net, and on a budget of only US$5,000. The project has attracted press attention worldwide, and probably some security concerns as well. "We are aware of the initiative," a Defence Force spokesman told Reuters, but declined any further comment. 2:44:26 AM    comment []

New York Times editors resign Executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd have resigned from the New York Times after the scandal starting when it was revealed that the young reporter Jayson Blair had plagiarised stories and invented quotations. The scandal didn't stop there, however, many mounting criticism on the way the NYT attributed stories and in particular Raines' autocrathic style of leadership. Mickey Kaus of Slate had just started a Howell Raines-O-Meter to estimate the chance of his resignation (modelled on the earlier Saddam-meter estimating the chance of war), but it had a short run indeed. Kaus argues that without the Internet, there would be little chance that the pressure would mount strong enough to force Raines to quit. 1:17:16 AM    comment []

Guardian correction and retraction Here is the correction to the deleted Guardian article which misquoted and misrepresented Paul Wolfowitz. Again, it was the blogsphere that exposed fraud in the mainstream media. Secular Blasphemy saved a copy of the original article for future reference, and for those of you who missed it: Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil, by George Wright According to the retraction, the article did not appear in the print edition. 12:31:03 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.07.2003; 00:25:06.