(c)licker

Blog Status Update

2008-12-08T14:02:00.008+11:00

To those subscribers who are wondering what's happened to _(c)licker_ blog posts, I'm now streaming links via my @netwurker Twitter account. Please request a follow.

Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands

2008-08-15T10:23:00.001+10:00

"...when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

On Tuesday, with an autopsy by the Rhode Island medical examiner under way, his lawyers demanded a criminal investigation in a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system.

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them."

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News

2008-08-02T08:54:00.000+10:00

By Glenn Greenwald

"The FBI's lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government's biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).

The 2001 anthrax attacks remain one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 era. After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency. One could make a persuasive case that they were actually more consequential. The 9/11 attacks were obviously traumatic for the country, but in the absence of the anthrax attacks, 9/11 could easily have been perceived as a single, isolated event. It was really the anthrax letters -- with the first one sent on September 18, just one week after 9/11 -- that severely ratcheted up the fear levels and created the climate that would dominate in this country for the next several years after. It was anthrax -- sent directly into the heart of the country's elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets -- that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism."

Orwell Diaries

2008-07-31T08:55:00.000+10:00

"‘When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page’, wrote George Orwell, in his 1939 essay on Charles Dickens.

From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict."

Now, the backlash

2008-07-05T19:51:00.001+10:00

"The sex industry is booming, the rape conviction rate is plummeting, women's bodies are picked over in the media, abortion rights are under serious threat and top business leaders say they don't want to employ women. It all adds up to one thing ... an all-out assault on feminism. But why? And what's to be done about it, asks Kira Cochrane..."

The Torture Trainers and the American Psychological Association

2008-06-26T22:02:00.001+10:00

By Stephen Soldz

"...As a further indication of APA's connection to the CIA's torture firm, one of the five "governing people" on the torture firm's Board is former American Psychological Association President, Joseph Matarazzo. The APA is intensely disturbed by President Matarazzo's possible involvement in torture as can be gleamed from these ethically-principled quotes from APA leadership when Matarazzo's involvement was revealed last summer:

Then-APA President Sharon Brehm: "No comment."

APA Director of the Ethics Office and APA point man on torture and interrogations: "No comment."..."

Dead dolphins: Navy admits use of anti-submarine sonar off Cornish coast

2008-06-16T17:36:00.001+10:00

"A Navy helicopter was using controversial sonar equipment off the Cornish coast days before 26 dolphins died in a mass stranding.

Officials at the Ministry of Defence admitted last night that the sonar "dipper", designed to hunt submarines, had been used by a Merlin helicopter on training exercise.

The mass dolphin stranding was the biggest in Britain for 30 years.

Four days later, the dolphins beached in the shallow Fal and Percuil rivers 60 miles away near Falmouth. The mass stranding last Monday was the biggest in Britain for 30 years.

Conservation groups want a full investigation. Marine wildlife and underwater acoustics experts said loud pulses from the sonar may have scared or confused the common dolphins into Falmouth Bay, where they became disorientated. An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph discovered that the sonar was being used as part of an exercise involving the nuclear-powered submarine Torbay and a number of surface warships."

No wonder Iceland has the happiest people on earth

2008-05-19T08:18:00.000+10:00

Special report by John Carlin

"Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world. To which one might respond: Yes, but - what with the dark winters and the far from tropical summers - are Icelanders happy? Actually, in so far as one can reliably measure such things, they are. According to a seemingly serious academic study reported in the Guardian in 2006, Icelanders are the happiest people on earth. (The study was lent some credibility by the finding that the Russians were the most unhappy.)..."

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

2008-04-16T09:04:00.000+10:00

by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

"Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination."

Torture tactics tarnishing US image

2008-03-12T09:34:00.000+11:00

"The use of torture to extract evidence from detainees held at the US military jail in Guantanamo Bay has tarnished the image of the US legal system and alienated allies in the war on terror, a human rights group says.

"The use of evidence tainted by torture and other inhuman treatment is pervasive and systematic in the cases of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, and has already infected legal judgments made there," Human Rights First said in a report titled 'Tortured Justice'.

By hearing testimony extracted under torture when trying Guantanamo detainees, the United States is "tainting the legitimacy of the proceedings, both at home and in the eyes of the international community; alienating US allies and empowering terrorists", it said.

'Tortured Justice' was released two days after US President George W Bush vetoed legislation on intelligence funding because it called for interrogation methods to be limited to techniques outlined in a US military manual.

That would have excluded waterboarding, a method of controlled drowning, widely seen as a form of torture.

In vetoing the bill on Saturday (local time), Mr Bush called hardcore interrogation methods "one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror", and praised them for preventing another attack on the United States, such as those on September 11, 2001."

Iraq war price tag reaches three trillion US dollars: book

2008-03-12T07:37:00.001+11:00

'The war in Iraq will cost US taxpayers at least three trillion dollars, a respected, Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in a new book which was excerpted in the US press this week.

Joseph Stiglitz's book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict," concluded that US military operations in Iraq already have exceeded the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

"The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million US troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007, inflation-adjusted dollars) of about five trillion dollars," he wrote in the work co-authored with Harvard professor Linda Bilmes.

"With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than 100,000 dollars in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of 400,000 dollars per troop."'

Two Federal Courts Undercut the First Amendment

2008-02-21T09:59:00.001+11:00

"Something is in the air these days because in two separate cases, federal court judges have issued rulings that do some damage to the First Amendment right to free speech. In the first case Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Federal District Court in San Francisco issued last week what the Citizen Media Project calls a "stunningly broad injunction" against web site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks says it's an "uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," and has actively published a number of purloined documents submitted to it, including the secret censorship lists of Thailand's military Junta and files that purported to expose money-laundering by the former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi.

This go-around Wikileaks published documents regarding a Cayman Islands bank Julius Baer Bank and Trust Company. Julius Baer asked first for a temporary restraining order against Wikileaks and then received a permanent injunction against the web site because, it argued, a disgruntled ex-employee has provided the site with stolen documents that violate a confidentiality agreement and banking laws. Judge White issued an order not to the site itself but to Wikileaks domain registrar Dynadot to disable the entire Wikileaks.org domain name and account and remove all DNS hosting records."

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

2008-02-19T12:57:00.000+11:00

by Ian Sample

"A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.

The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.

The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.

Since its discovery, scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device, which is now known to be an astronomical calendar capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon. Experts believe it to be the earliest-known device to use gear wheels and by far the most sophisticated object to be found from the ancient and medieval period."

Why Did A California Court Hide All Of WikiLeaks Over A Single Document?

2008-02-19T12:55:00.000+11:00

"from the seems-excessive dept

Over a year ago, we wrote about the Wikileaks project, designed to allow government and company officials to anonymously leak documents as a way of whistleblowing questionable activities. Apparently, it's been quite successful at times. However, in doing so, it's also building up a list of enemies, including one who has apparently convinced a California court to make the entire site disappear in the US. The Swiss banking group, Julius Baer, was upset by documents found on the site that they believe were posted by a former VP at the bank, alleging that the bank was involved in money laundering operations. Julius Baer's lawyers claim that having these documents public could influence ongoing litigation in Switzerland (one assumes having to do with money laundering). While it's understandable that the bank might not want those documents online, or that those documents might impact current litigation, that doesn't explain why the California court ordered the entire site offline, demanded that its registrar block the transfer of the domain, force the registrar to point all visitors to a blank page and also having the registrar hand over all information on IP addresses of people who accessed the wikileaks site. All of that seems rather excessive, and of questionable legality. After all, doesn't Section 230 of the CDA provide safe harbor for the service provider? I could see an order demanding the specific documents be taken down, but the rest of the order seems to go well beyond what's both reasonable and standard in cases of this nature. The folks behind Wikileaks are equally perplexed, noting that they were only given a few hours warning before the hearing, meaning they were unable to attend or send representation. All in all this seems rather excessive, especially compared to existing similar cases on record. Even odder about all of this is that since the court went after the registrar, not whoever is actually hosting the site, you can apparently still reach the actual site if you know the IP address."

Robots could reduce animal tests

2008-02-19T12:49:00.000+11:00

By Helen Briggs

"US scientists are taking the first step towards testing potentially hazardous chemicals on cells grown in a laboratory, without using live animals.

Two government agencies are looking into the merits of using high-speed automated robots to carry out tests.

The long-term goal is to reduce the cost, time and number of animals used in screening everything from pesticides to household chemicals.

The move follows calls for scientists to rely less on animal studies.

Robots would be able to carry out hundreds of thousands of chemical tests a day to identify chemicals with toxic effects.

Details were published in the journal Science and discussed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston."

Innocent man dies of medical neglect in Guantanamo

2008-01-09T13:29:00.000+11:00

"On December 30th Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) announced the fifth death in custody of a Guantanamo captive.

The JTF-GTMO asserted that 68 year-old Abdul Razzak was a confirmed jihadist and military leader.

It is interesting to compare the JTF-GTMO claims with his testimony."

Bhutto's body flown home [tragic]

2007-12-28T11:09:00.000+11:00

"RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- The body of Pakistan's assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was being flown home Friday, as sporadic violence was reported in cities across the country. Bhutto was killed Thursday leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi. The Interior Ministry said she died from a gun shot wound to the neck, fired by an attacker who then detonated a bomb killing 22 other people.

Angry mobs took to the streets, blocking roads, torching cars and pelting rocks at police, local television footage showed.

Police fired on a crowd, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, GEO TV reported. In Peshawar, officers used tear gas and batons to break up a demonstration, the station said.

Authorities called for calm and police asked residents to stay inside.

Many obliged, shuttering shops or rushing home from work, and surrendering the streets to protesters who set fire to banks, shops, gas stations and more, Pakistani media reported."

Metalosis Maligna - An Extraordinary disease [fiction]

2007-12-28T11:07:00.000+11:00

The Lawless Surveillance State

2007-12-18T07:24:00.000+11:00

by Glenn Greenwald

"There are several vital points raised by the new revelations in The New York Times that "the N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before" and includes both pre-9/11 efforts to tap without warrants into the nation's domestic communications network as well as the collection of vast telephone records of American citizens in the name of the War on Drugs. The Executive Branch and the largest telecommunications companies work in virtually complete secrecy -- with no oversight and no notion of legal limits -- to spy on Americans, on our own soil, at will.

More than anything else, what these revelations highlight -- yet again -- is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government's ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities. The vast bulk of those on whom the Government spies have never been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong."

Ten Steps To Close Down an Open Society

2007-12-05T11:57:00.000+11:00

"Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise."

Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia

2007-12-05T11:40:00.000+11:00

By Cade Metz

'On the surface, all is well in Wikiland. Just last week, a headline from The San Francisco Chronicle told the world that "Wikipedia's Future Is Still Looking Up," as the paper happily announced that founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales plans to expand his operation with a high-profile move to the city by the bay.

But underneath, there's trouble brewing.

Controversy has erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after a rogue editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power.

Many suspected that such a list was in use, as the Wikipedia "ruling clique" grew increasingly concerned with banning editors for the most petty of reasons. But now that the list's existence is confirmed, the rank and file are on the verge of revolt.

Revealed after an uber-admin called "Durova" used it in an attempt to enforce the quixotic ban of a longtime contributor, this secret mailing list seems to undermine the site's famously egalitarian ethos. At the very least, the list allows the ruling clique to push its agenda without scrutiny from the community at large. But clearly, it has also been used to silence the voice of at least one person who was merely trying to improve the encyclopedia's content.

"I've never seen the Wikipedia community as angry as they are with this one," says Charles Ainsworth, a Japan-based editor who's contributed more feature articles to the site than all but six other writers. "I think there was more hidden anger and frustration with the 'ruling clique' than I thought and Durova's heavy-handed action and arrogant refusal to take sufficient accountability for it has released all of it into the open."

Kelly Martin, a former member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, leaves no doubt that this sort of surreptitious communication has gone on for ages. "This particular list is new, but the strategy is old," Martin told us via phone, from outside Chicago. "It's certainly not consistent with the public principles of the site. But in reality, it's standard practice."

Meanwhile, Jimbo Wales has told the community that all this is merely a tempest in a teacup. As he points out, the user that Durova wrongly banned was reinstated after a mere 75 minutes. But it would seem that Jimbo has done his best to suppress any talk of the secret mailing list.

Whatever the case, many longtime editors are up-in-arms. And the site's top administrators seem more concerned with petty site politics than with building a trustworthy encyclopedia. "The problem with Wikipedia is that, for so many in the project, it's no longer about the encyclopedia," Martin wrote in a recent blog post. "The problem is that Wikipedia's community has defined itself not in terms of the encyclopedia it is supposedly producing, but instead of the people it venerates and the people it abhors."'

No evidence but Habib banished anyway

2007-12-05T08:43:00.000+11:00

"AUSTRALIAN counter-terrorism authorities had no evidence that Mamdouh Habib had taken part in terrorist-related activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan before he was abducted by the US and taken to Egypt and Guantanamo Bay, an ASIO agent told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

The ASIO officer, who interviewed Mr Habib three times in Islamabad in 2001, was testifying yesterday in a defamation case involving Mr Habib and the News Limited columnist Piers Akerman.

Officer 1, as the ASIO officer is codenamed, told Justice Peter McClellan that, before conducting the interviews, he knew only that Mr Habib had been in Pakistan and Afghanistan about the time of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"He may have been in Afghanistan for a number of reasons," Officer 1 said. "What he was doing, I did not know … that was the purpose of the interview."

He was none the wiser after the interviews as Mr Habib's "failure to answer the questions did not illuminate [his activities]".

He said there were suspicions - unfounded, it later emerged - that Mr Habib was involved in the September 11 attacks.

"It was a possibility but by no means the only possibility," Officer 1 told the court.

Within a month of the interviews taking place, Mr Habib was abducted by Pakistani and US officials and flown to Egypt, which has a prison system notorious for using torture.

Mr Habib spent about six months there, and has detailed extensive mistreatment, including being regularly beaten, subjected to electric shocks, deprived of sleep and left in neck-high water for extended periods.

Officer 1 said he was aware now that Mr Habib had been taken to Egypt but he had had no role in the abduction and would have stopped it if he could."

Human observation of dark energy may shorten the life span of the universe

2007-11-26T14:17:00.000+11:00

By Matt Ford

"Could humanity's observation of dark energy have shortened the life span of the universe? The answer is "yes" according to the author of a new scientific paper that has recently come to light. Featured in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine, the subscriber-only story "Has observing the universe hastened its end?" discusses the paper and its claims."

Dolly pioneer drops cloning with embryos: report

2007-11-18T11:50:00.000+11:00

"A British scientist who led researchers who created Dolly the sheep is to abandon cloning using embryos for a rival method which makes stem cells without them, a report says.

Professor Ian Wilmut of Edinburgh University gained celebrity but also attracted criticism from some religious groups and pro-life campaigners after being involved in the cloning of the first mammal from an adult cell in 1996.

But British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reports that Professor Wilmut has now decided against pursuing a licence to clone human embryos which he was awarded two years ago, in favour of a different method.

The method, pioneered by Professor Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University in Japan, creates stem cells from fragments of skin in mice without using embryos.

Professor Yamanaka is now believed to have done the same with human cells, the paper reports..."

Blackwater killed 14 Iraqis without cause: NY Times

2007-11-15T12:44:00.000+11:00

"Early findings by the FBI on a September shootout in Baghdad involving private security firm Blackwater show that at least 14 Iraqis were killed for no reason, The New York Times reported.

In all, 17 people were killed when Blackwater private security guards opened fire in a crowded Baghdad neighbourhood as they protected a State Department convoy.

Blackwater said the guards came under attack.

At least 14 of the shootings broke rules for private security guards in Iraq regarding the use of deadly force, the Times reported, citing unnamed civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

US officials contacted by AFP declined to comment for this news story, citing the "ongoing investigation."

"Sorry, but given that this is an ongoing investigation, we are not in a position to comment at this time" said Dean Boyd, a Department of Justice spokesman.

Blackwater has been accused by its detractors of having a cowboy mentality and a 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach when guarding the steady stream of politicians, diplomats and other dignitaries who parade through war-torn Iraq."

RIAA should be blocked from obtaining any data from schools, argues student

2007-11-15T12:38:00.000+11:00

By Eric Bangeman

"An anonymous George Washington University student targeted by the RIAA for file-sharing is seeking to have the subpoena served on his school quashed and the complaint dismissed. In his motion, the unnamed student raises a couple of issues that could become significant roadblocks for the RIAA in its campaign against on-campus file-sharing.

Throughout its legal campaign against file-sharing, the RIAA has relied on the Cable Communications Policy Act to obtain subscriber data from cable ISPs and DSL providers. Under the CCPA, cable companies are required to cough up the data when ordered to do so by a court. It has worked in the tens of thousands of cases filed by the recording industry against broadband users, and the RIAA has cited the CCPA as the basis for the ex parte subpoenas directed at college students.

There's one problem. Colleges aren't cable providers. Doe number three helpfully points that out to the judge, noting that the CCPA defines a cable operator as an entity that either provides cable service or manages and operates a cable system. "GWU is neither," argues Doe three."

White House ordered to preserve all e-mail

2007-11-14T12:26:00.000+11:00

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.

A judge ordered the White House to keep copies of all e-mails.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.

In response, the White House said it has been taking steps to preserve copies of all e-mails and will continue to do so. The administration is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.

The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White House e-mails. The court order issued by Kennedy, an appointee of President Clinton, is directed at maintaining backup tapes which contain copies of White House e-mails.

The Federal Records Act details strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States."

The WGA Strike and the Death of Television

2007-11-14T11:02:00.000+11:00

"This WGA strike sucks, to be sure. If it goes on for more than three months (which is looking increasingly likely), pilot season won't happen, no new shows will be created, no new seasons will come back, and we'll be stuck with the dregs of reality TV for a full year. Yep, that means no last season of Battlestar Galactica, no new season of Lost, and no new episodes of The Office. It's no small thing, and not just because you'll be inconvenienced by marathons of Overweight Celebrity Chili Cook-Off Island or whatever the networks will throw up when they run out of new programming.

TV is not disappearing anytime soon, but clearly, it's going to be replaced by either the internet or some TV/internet hybrid. Like the music industry, the TV industry realizes that their tried-and-true business model is about to be useless, and it's lashing out in panic. Unlike the music industry, who stupidly attacked its fans, the TV industry is attacking its own creative source: writers. But the WGA wouldn't be striking if this wasn't important. We talked to both sides to get at the root of the trouble."

Fury after intervention workers 'dig toilet on ceremonial sacred site'

2007-11-13T10:49:00.000+11:00

"Traditional owners from Numbulwar on the Gulf of Carpentaria say the actions of five Federal Government workers have caused lasting damage to the Indigenous intervention.

A gang of five intervention workers arrived in the area, nearly 600 kilometres south-east of Darwin, late last month, and were told by council staff to use toilet and shower facilities at a nearby training centre.

Instead the group dug a long-drop toilet in the middle of the most important ceremonial ground in the region.

Traditional owner Billy Gumana has told the 7.30 Report that he is furious.

"They think our culture is a toy culture, they think it's not real, but to us it is real, because we belong to this ground," he said.

The head of the Federal Intervention Taskforce, Major General David Chalmers, says he is appalled and the incident is being investigated."

IBM Predicts the End of Advertising as We Know It

2007-11-12T13:30:00.000+11:00

"ARMONK, NY - 08 Nov 2007: IBM (NYSE: IBM) Global Business Services unveiled its new report, "The End of Advertising as We Know It," forecasting greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next five years than occurred in the previous 50.

To examine the factors influencing advertising and explore future scenarios, IBM surveyed more than 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising executives globally. The IBM report shows increasingly empowered consumers, more self-reliant advertisers and ever-evolving technologies are redefining how advertising is sold, created, consumed and tracked.

Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising. To survive in this new reality, broadcasters must change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments, and distributors need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices. Advertising agencies must experiment creatively, become brokers of consumer insights, and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices. All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels."

Definition Changing for People's Privacy

2007-11-12T13:22:00.000+11:00

By PAMELA HESS

"WASHINGTON (AP) - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007."

Andrews 'should resign' over Haneef case

2007-11-02T14:41:00.000+11:00

"Greens Senator Kerry Nettle says the Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, should resign over his handling of the case against former Gold Coast-based doctor Mohamed Haneef.

Dr Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo has obtained emails that reveal discussions between the AFP and the Immigration Department about detaining Dr Haneef under the Migration Act if he was granted bail on a terrorism charge.

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews has rejected suggestions he was involved in a conspiracy.

Senator Nettle says if he will not resign, the Prime Minister needs to sack him.

"The evidence points to him conspiring to subvert the court's decision to release Dr Haneef," she said.

"We can not have a minister in this Government that operates in that way to try to undermine the processes that are going on in our courts.""

Bush defends A-G nominee in torture dispute

2007-11-02T08:54:00.000+11:00

"United States President George W Bush has defended his attorney-general nominee, saying Michael Mukasey will not tell lawmakers weighing his confirmation if he judges "waterboarding" of terrorism suspects is torture, and thus illegal.

Mr Bush's defiant defense of Mr Mukasey came in a speech that portrayed his Democratic critics as weak on terrorism -- a replay of his successful 2004 reelection message as the 2008 White House race heats up.

Prominent Democrats, whose party retook the US Congress in November 2006 largely thanks to anger at the unpopular war in Iraq, quickly shot back that they would oppose Mr Mukasey if he did not answer the question."

Workplace Relations Dept faces fine over Rally Ban

2007-10-30T11:11:00.001+11:00

This is seriously unbelievable. First, The Australian Howard Government sets up The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations which is specifically designed to monitor possible breaches of the Workplace Relations Act. Then, this very government department tramples over its own guidelines by issuing notices [illegal, as it turns out] to its employees denying them leave to attend a union organised rally. This is such a statement on the state of the current Australian Government, not to mention the mainstream Aussie media. Why isn't this the leading story across all networks??

FEMA sorry for fake news briefing

2007-10-28T19:51:00.000+11:00

By Spencer S. Hsu | Washington Post
6:33 PM CDT, October 26, 2007

"WASHINGTON - The Federal Emergency Management Agency's No. 2 official apologized Friday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters while real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions.

"We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straight forward and transparent," Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., FEMA's deputy administrator, said in a four-paragraph statement.

"We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment," Johnson said, a view repeated Friday by press officers at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, who criticized the event."

Australian Liberal Party responsible for an "outrageous act of censorship".

2007-10-22T13:31:00.000+10:00

"The ABC, in cahoots with the National Press Club, pulled the Nine Network's election debate feed on behalf of the Liberal Party in an "outrageous act of censorship", Nine's news chief John Westacott says.

The network's feed from the televised debate between Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd last night was cut after the network broadcast the controversial "worm" with its coverage, he said.

The ABC has denied the allegation and said it had "no role" in the decision to cut the feed, according to a spokeswoman.

"All decisions about the host broadcast feed, including decisions about who it would be provided to, were made by the National Press Club," she said.

Nine was warned its feed was going to be cut and was able to switch to take a feed first from the ABC and then, when that was cut, from Sky News, said Mr Westacott, Nine's director of news and current affairs.

He insists there was "absolutely no agreement" between Nine and the press club over its coverage.

"We were asked not to use the worm, that's correct, and we didn't agree with any of the conditions that were laid down by the Press Club, including charging us for the event," he told ABC Radio this morning.

"We were given warning as they were going to pull it, so we cut to our back-up feed and then they threatened to pull that too," he said."

Torture Endorsed, Torture Denied

2007-10-11T08:15:00.000+10:00

"JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that the Bush administration's repeated insistence that it has not endorsed the torture of prisoners rings hollow in light of newly-disclosed US Department of Justice memos supporting the harshest techniques the CIA has ever used..."

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

2007-10-08T08:43:00.000+10:00

'Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before".'

Ed Pilkington in New York

Hundreds of agencies in the UK will have access to phone records

2007-10-02T07:37:00.000+10:00

by Drew Hemmett

"Hundreds of agencies in the UK will have access to phone records from
today, following new regulations which require telecoms companies to
retain for 1 year and share information on the calls people make
using mobile or landline phones and their location. This has been
quietly introduced by the Home Office under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and is justified as a vital tool to
combat terrorism. The government will also be able to require people
to hand over decryption keys under the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20072199.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20072196.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm
http://www.statewatch.org/eu-data-retention.htm"

Robot dogs race to be soldier's best friend

2007-09-27T11:30:00.000+10:00

by Will Knight

"A timid-looking four-legged robot about the size of a Chihuahua might seem like an unlikely companion for soldiers of the future.

Yet the robot, called LittleDog, could ultimately help researchers create more sophisticated robotic assistants for military personnel, including automated "pack-mules" capable of hauling heavy loads over tough terrain.

This is because LittleDog is remarkably agile for a robot when faced with treacherous, uneven terrain. Researchers are also fine-tuning its movement to be even faster and more animal-like over rough terrain.

LittleDog was created for the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by US robotics company Boston Dynamics."

'Childrens do learn,' Bush tells schoolkids

2007-09-27T11:26:00.000+10:00

Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, US President George W Bush told a group of New York school kids: "Childrens do learn."

Mr Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorise the No Child Left Behind Act, the centerpiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.

The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from the PS 76 school.

During his first presidential campaign, Mr Bush - who promised to be the "education president" - once asked: "Is our children learning?"

Mr Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said.

The White House opted to clean up Bush's diction in the official transcript.

- Reuters

Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation

2007-09-25T13:24:00.000+10:00

"Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AEC) have found evidence that certain fungi possess another talent beyond their ability to decompose matter: the capacity to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.

Detailing the research in Public Library of Science ONE, AEC's Arturo Casadevall said his interest was piqued five years ago when he read about how a robot sent into the still-highly-radioactive Chernobyl reactor had returned with samples of black, melanin-rich fungi that were growing on the ruined reactor's walls. "I found that very interesting and began discussing with colleagues whether these fungi might be using the radiation emissions as an energy source," explained Casadevall."

Alex the African Grey parrot and subject of landmark studies of bird intelligence dies at 31

2007-09-11T08:25:00.000+10:00

"WALTHAM, MA (SEPTEMBER 10, 2007)—Alex, the world renowned African Grey parrot made famous by the ground-breaking cognition and communication research conducted by Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D., died at the age of 31 on September 6, 2007. Dr. Pepperberg’s pioneering research resulted in Alex learning elements of English speech to identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. He used phrases such as “I want X” and “Wanna go Y”, where X and Y were appropriate object and location labels. He acquired concepts of categories, bigger and smaller, same-different, and absence. Alex combined his labels to identify, request, refuse, and categorize more than 100 different items demonstrating a level and scope of cognitive abilities never expected in an avian species. Pepperberg says that Alex showed the emotional equivalent of a 2 year-old child and intellectual equivalent of a 5 year-old. Her research with Alex shattered the generally held notion that parrots are only capable of mindless vocal mimicry."

Indian government forcing cybercafés to install keyloggers

2007-09-11T08:23:00.000+10:00

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: September 10, 2007 - 11:19AM CT

"The roughly 500 cybercafés in Mumbai, India, will soon have police-sanctioned keylogging software installed on their machines in the name of fighting terrorism. The software will track everything entered into web forms, chat rooms, e-mail, and more, and report it back to the government. Mumbai police say that cybercafé owners must agree to the installation of the software or else they will lose their licenses."

Muscle-powered films create a micro-cyborg

2007-09-08T10:07:00.000+10:00

By Matt Ford | Published: September 06, 2007 - 01:00PM CT

"Tissue- and bio-engineering promise some of the biggest breakthroughs science and engineering will deliver in the next few years. Today a paper appears in Science that reports on the creation of a biohybrid device that uses plastics and muscle cells to enable autonomous walking and swimming. These devices, created by a pair of research groups at Harvard University, are termed muscular thin films (MTFs)."

Our freedoms are eroded: QC

2007-08-29T14:00:00.000+10:00

by Gerard Noonan

"THE reputation of Australian courts has slipped and its position as a bastion of free speech and human rights has eroded in recent times, says the human rights campaigner and prominent international barrister Geoffrey Robertson...He singled out recent legislation introduced by the Treasurer, Peter Costello, which introduces severe penalties for "secondary boycott" campaigners - including the media - campaigning on issues like child slavery or animal cruelty as the latest sign of restrictions on human rights and media freedom."

This is Freaking Unbelievable. A Total, Disgusting, Tragic Miscarriage of Justice [is there such as thing nowadays?]

2007-08-21T09:38:00.000+10:00

US officer on trial over Abu Ghraib abuse

"Two of the most serious charges against US officer Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, who is charged over the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, were dropped after an investigator acknowledged that he failed to read Jordan his rights during a 2004 interview.

Jordan has been charged with illegally approving the use of dogs in interrogations and allowing the mistreatment of prisoners to continue.

He was charged after photographs surfaced showing US military guards abusing naked detainees at the Iraqi jail in 2003 and 2004.

Jordan is the only US officer charged in connection with the abuse scandal and is pleading innocent to the remaining charges, saying he is being used as a scapegoat.

Eleven soldiers have already been convicted of abusing Iraqi detainees at the prison in 2003 and 2004.

Jordan is the last of 12 defendants to be court-martialled."

Yet Another Reason Why the Fed Gov's Northern Territory Intervention is Racist + a Ploy to Grab Control of Aboriginal Land

2007-08-21T07:56:00.000+10:00

by Joel Gibson and Debra Jopson

"HUNDREDS of millions of dollars which the Federal Government says it has spent on indigenous affairs have never been spent, have been used to benefit all Australians or have gone towards opposing Aboriginal native title claims.

A significant portion of the money the Government says it has spent since 2000 - which has risen annually and reached $3 billion last year alone - was either underspent or the result of creative accounting, a Herald investigation has found.

Over the past six years, at least $30 million of the money the Government promoted as being for Aborigines was used to oppose native title and compensation claims. Spending figures have also been bloated by money spent on services that benefit everyone - such as medical centres - but the money is nevertheless described specifically as the "black dollar".

Last financial year, for example, almost $50 million of the federal spending on indigenous people was for legal aid, which the courts have recognised as a right under common law. The $500,000 estimated to be the cost of Family Court disputes involving Aborigines has also been counted..."

The L.A. Times tells its readers: 'Shut up'

2007-08-18T20:50:00.000+10:00

By Robert Niles
Posted: 2007-08-17

"The Los Angeles Times this morning insulted its readers in a stunning editorial that compared Google with Osama bin Laden and showed why Times editors simply do not understand the medium that is growing to dominate the news publishing industry. A point by point rebuttal follows:

Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden.

Who are these publishers, exactly? The Times' David Hiller? Ignore the straw man here and the reader is still left with The Times' belief that a search engine company which has helped millions of people around the world more effectively find the information they need, and that has paid publishers billions of dollars to create original content (full disclosure: including OJR and me, personally) is a greater threat to journalism and Western capitalism than a murderer who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11."

Gates discloses holdings in McDonald's

2007-08-16T16:30:00.000+10:00

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates disclosed on Tuesday his foundation holds stakes in McDonald's Corp., wireless tower operator Crown Castle International Corp. and Progressive Corp., the third-largest U.S. auto insurer.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust reported its holdings as of June 30 in a quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing revealed that the trust holds 740,000 shares of McDonald's, the world's biggest restaurant company, 5 million shares of Crown Castle, and 1.5 million shares of Progressive.

The trust also reported that it had increased its stake in photography company Eastman Kodak Co. to 2.6 million shares from 100,000 shares as of March 31."

Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

Google's photos of Sydney go all fuzzy

2007-08-15T07:02:00.000+10:00

"Much of Sydney's CBD as it appears in the satellite images on Google Maps Australia has been fuzzed out, just weeks before the APEC summit.

Google says the imagery was downgraded as a result of a "commercial issue" with a supplier, but the move has aroused speculation it was done at the request of police in order to minimise the risk of a terrorist attack during the September summit, where Sydney will play host to 21 world leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush.

Google has in the past been accused of censoring its maps due to national security concerns by governments, most recently in June when it updated its maps of Washington D.C. but maintained older, blurry images for most of the downtown area.

Users of Google Maps Australia could previously zoom in for satellite views as close as 25m above the ground in much of Sydney, but now maps of the CBD are blurry even when zoomed out to 300m.

Where users could once make out individual people, tree branches and garbage bin lids they can now only view vague outlines of objects.

Curiously, the high-resolution satellite images, which were introduced as part of a Google Maps Australia upgrade earlier this year, appear to have been rolled back to lower quality versions for the Sydney CBD only, and not for suburbs like Bondi Beach and Point Piper."

Yet another reason why economic rationalism is a sign of capitalism imploding

2007-08-03T16:55:00.000+10:00

Aust 'misused' $170m Iraq aid

A new report has found more than $170 million of Australian aid money earmarked for humanitarian relief in Iraq was misused to promote Australian economic gain.

Aid Watch says that instead of working to rebuild the Iraqi economy, Australian officials devised agreements to remove tariffs on foreign imports, including Australian wheat.

Aid Watch spokesman Flint Duxfield says the group is calling for an audit of all Australian aid to Iraq since 2003.

"Far from protecting Iraq's own food security, which was the stated objective of Australia's aid mission, Australian officials paid by AusAid focused on guaranteeing ongoing wheat contracts for Australian companies and removing subsidies and protections for Iraqi producers in ways that gave considerable advantages to Australian farmers," he said.

Wikipedia Trumps Encyclopedia Britannica

2007-07-27T17:56:00.000+10:00

Go here.

Madness in the tightening of our censorship laws

2007-07-24T08:57:00.000+10:00

by David Marr

"...Yet the Office of Film and Literature Classification will soon be hunting for men and women with the amazing ability to pick the books, films, symphonies, news broadcasts, sitcoms and sermons that "might lead a person (regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment) to engage in a terrorist act".

Philip Ruddock wants all such works banned. We are not defenceless now. For years this country has suppressed any works that "promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence" but the Attorney-General fears that formula is too slack. With his lawyer's mind he sees the risk of insidious material slipping through the net to inspire the naive and impressionable.

It's over a year since he first tried to persuade the state and territory attorneys-general to accept this new rule banning "advocacy" of terrorism. They jacked up, alarmed by the sweeping powers he wanted to give the censors.

When the attorneys meet again in Hobart at the end of this week, Ruddock will once more be insisting his new rule be adopted by the states and territories. If they don't - and several states are still holding out - he has a bill ready and waiting to override the nation's supposedly co-operative censorship arrangements. "I am not prepared," Ruddock told Parliament in June, "to wait indefinitely to address this problem."

But what is the problem, asked the Australian Press Council, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Law Council of Australia in submissions to Ruddock's department over the past few months? Promoting terrorism is already banned, so why do we need new rules to suppress urging, advocating and praising?"

Meat is murder on the environment

2007-07-22T12:18:00.000+10:00

by Daniele Fanelli

"A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home."

Haneef case descends into farce [and still the government will deport him even if he is found innocent!!]

2007-07-21T12:34:00.000+10:00

"THE crucial piece of evidence against the terrorism suspect Mohamed Haneef - that his mobile phone SIM card was found at the scene of a British car bombing - is wrong, the Australian Federal Police have admitted.

The revelation has cast a fresh cloud over police handling of the Haneef case, with scathing criticism coming from Peter Faris, a QC who has been an ardent supporter of anti-terrorism laws, and the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, expressing concern.

Federal police sources said yesterday it had been confirmed the SIM card was not found at the scene of the Glasgow Airport attack, as prosecutors had alleged during Haneef's bail hearing last weekend.

It was found in the possession of one of Haneef's cousins, Sabeel Ahmed, hundreds of kilometres away in Liverpool. The sources said they had been aware of the error for some time, but no attempt was made to correct the public record.

In Britain, a source close to the investigation confirmed the SIM card was found in Liverpool, and said the Australian police were considered a laughing stock by Britain's Metropolitan Police for allowing "such a major cock-up" to happen. "Australian police have got their wires crossed. This is very embarrassing for them. The police here are laughing at the Australian police, saying, 'What on earth have they done?' [Haneef] is clearly more of a political case than a police case."

The Herald has learnt that the prosecutor at the Brisbane bail hearing, Clive Porritt, of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, even gave the court an explanation when defence lawyers asked why Haneef would have provided his SIM card if he knew it was planned to be used for the purposes of terrorism.

Mr Porritt responded that it had been intended the SIM card would be destroyed in the planned explosion when a Jeep Cherokee was rammed into the doors of at Glasgow Airport.

A spokeswoman for the DPP, asked if Mr Porritt had provided wrong information on the SIM card to the bail hearing, responded: "It is not appropriate for us to comment on matters before the court."

In Bangalore, India, Haneef's wife, Firdous Arshiya, was visited by a junior minister from the Ministry of External Affairs, who assured her the Indian Government would try to ensure that her husband received justice.

"Every day I hear of some new problem that my husband is facing in Australia," she said. "That is why I met the minister to ask that the Indian Government put more pressure on the Australian Government."

The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, said yesterday none of the revelations would affect his decision to cancel Haneef's visa. That decision was made after Haneef was granted bail, with the minister ordering his indefinite incarceration in a detention centre.

"The minister is not reviewing his decision to cancel Dr Haneef's visa. Nothing that has been reported in the media alters his decision, which was made after advice from the AFP and was based on a broader range of information than was provided to the magistrate in the bail hearing."

However, there are suggestions Mr Andrews relied partially on other inaccurate information, contained in a federal police affidavit, when he cancelled Haneef's work visa.

The affidavit said that Haneef offered "no particular reason" for buying a one-way ticket from Brisbane to India.

However, a leaked transcript of a police interview shows Haneef explaining that his father-in-law had bought the one-way ticket for him because he had limited funds.

The affidavit also suggests Haneef admitted to having lived at a British address with the second cousins who are now being prosecuted there. But the interview transcript shows he denied living at the house at the same time.

The Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, said information given by the AFP and other sources to Mr Andrews was an "entirely separate matter" to the criminal prosecution of Haneef, with different grounds of evidence. Mr Keelty declined to answer a series of written questions from the Herald on the SIM card evidence, or the information provided to the minister.

He was asked: - Was the suggestion that the SIM card was found in the Jeep crucial to Haneef being charged? - When did police learn that the card was not in the Jeep? - Did that discovery alter his view on Haneef being charged? - If not, what evidence had police relied on? - Did he acknowledge that the bail magistrate and Mr Andrews were given incorrect information about Haneef; and - Would he consider dropping the charges?

The federal police came under ferocious attack from Dr Faris, a former head of the National Crime Authority.

The evidence mistake was a "shocking mess-up" that jeopardised the prosecution's case, he said

"You can't get something that's so central so wrong," Dr Faris told ABC radio.

"I think this is fast approaching the situation where there is not a reasonable prospect of a conviction unless there's some other evidence that we don't know about."

Dr Faris said the case showed the federal police were "way out of their depth".

Mr Keelty said Dr Faris should "keep his comments to himself". It was up to the courts to evaluate evidence.

"Submissions are made to courts every other day ... They are not evidence; they are submissions. And we need to let the court determine the value of what has been put before it."

But Mr Beattie said inconsistencies in official statements had not been properly explained, and he called on the Prime Minister, John Howard, to clarify the situation.

Until key questions were answered people would feel uneasy "and a little bit embarrassed" about the impact of the case on Australia's reputation.

"The reality is we are not mushrooms, and we shouldn't be treated like that."

Court documents released yesterday confirmed Dr Haneef would face up to 15 years imprisonment if convicted.

Haneef predicament 'every Muslim's fear'

2007-07-21T12:33:00.000+10:00

'A Muslim civil rights advocate says the handling of the case of the Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef has confirmed the Muslim community's worst fears.

Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network says those fears date back to the introduction of the counter-terrorism legislation last year.

Dr Kadous says the Haneef case has left many thinking "there but for the grace of God go I".

"[It was] every Muslim's fear that this could happen to him," he said.

"They can imagine being in the same situation as Haneef was in, that they left a SIM card with a relative before leaving country and then something happens a year later.

"They can imagine borrowing money from someone and paying the loan back, these are not unusual things."'

Facism, anyone!? [or: why the crap aren't people rioting in the streets about this!?]

2007-07-20T23:02:00.000+10:00

"Some of the details of a terrorism charge against Mohamed Haneef presented in court by the prosecution may have been incorrect, reports say.

A Brisbane court was told this week a mobile phone SIM card belonging to Haneef, a Gold Coast based doctor, was found in the Jeep that smashed into Glasgow Airport on June 30.

Haneef has been charged with "recklessly" supporting a terrorist organisation, after providing the SIM card to a relative later allegedly involved in plotting the botched car bomb attacks in the UK.

However, sources in the UK and Australia have told ABC Radio the SIM card was actually seized by police eight hours later when Haneef's cousin Sabeel Ahmed was arrested in Liverpool.

Ahmed allegedly had two phones on him at the time of his arrest, one of which contained Haneef's SIM card.

Police in Britain and Australia would not comment on where the SIM card was seized."

'Altruistic' chimps act for the benefit of others

2007-07-06T12:58:00.000+10:00

NewScientist.com news service
Nora Schultz

Chimps happily help out unrelated chimps and unfamiliar humans, even if it means exerting themselves for no reward, a new study shows.

True altruism – unselfish acts for another's benefit – was until recently considered uniquely human. Usually when animals cooperate, they either help relatives – thereby increasing chances of passing shared genes to the next generation – or they count on having favours returned in the future.

Now Felix Warneken and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have found that 12 out of 18 semi-wild chimpanzees went out of their way to help an unfamiliar human who was struggling to reach a stick. Watch a video of a chimp helping retrieve the stick (MPG format).

The primates did this even when they were inconvenienced – such as when they first had to climb into a 2.5-metre-high ropeway – and for no reward. Equivalent experiments with human toddlers gave similar results (video, MPG format).

Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US

2007-07-06T12:54:00.000+10:00

NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists.

Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.

The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure group based in Austin, Texas, US, who after persistent requests got the minutes of university biosafety committees using the US Freedom of Information Act. The minutes are accessible to the public by law.

There are now 20,000 people at 400 sites around the US working with putative bioweapons germs, says Hammond, 10 times more than before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some scientists have warned for years that more people handling dangerous germs are a recipe for accidents.

Iraq deployment linked to oil: Nelson

2007-07-05T12:07:00.000+10:00

"Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says securing the world's oil supply is one of the Federal Government's considerations as it decides how long to keep troops in Iraq.

The statement has prompted Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd to accuse Prime Minister John Howard of "making it up as he goes along" on Iraq.

The Government released its update on national defence policy this morning, warning of the ongoing threat from terrorism and continuing problems with fragile states in our region.

Speaking ahead of the release, Dr Nelson confirmed the Government viewed Australia's involvement in Iraq as partially driven by the need to secure oil supplies, although he said the main reason was to ensure that the humanitarian crisis did not worsen."

Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale

2007-07-02T08:30:00.000+10:00

By Mark Baard
Published Saturday 23rd June 2007 09:02 GMT

'Perhaps your real life is so rich you don't have time for another.

Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.

The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.

Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project.

"SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)," the paper reads, so that military leaders can "develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners".'

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil

2007-06-30T22:15:00.000+10:00

"A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.

All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).

Key to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas.

GRC's machine is called the Hawk-10. Its smaller incarnations look just like an industrial microwave with bits of machinery attached to it. Larger versions resemble a concrete mixer."

Inmates' words: The poems of Guantanamo

2007-06-26T14:09:00.000+10:00

"The publication of an anthology of works, composed on paper cups by detainees, provides a harrowing insight into the torments and fading hopes of prisoners. Leonard Doyle reports."

'A Different Understanding With the President'

2007-06-25T16:34:00.000+10:00

by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker

"Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part."

Dumped: $9 an hour, no security for vulnerable

2007-06-25T11:55:00.001+10:00

"THE young men who collected trolleys at three Centro shopping centres in and around Albury were always good for a cheery hello and a chat.

One day in late May they were not there, and the story of instant dismissal, shipped-in replacements and the unending search for lowest-cost services by Australia's largest retailers exposes deep social and economic forces changing Australia.

The 20 trolley boys who were summarily dismissed by a Melbourne labour-hire company, Xidis Pty Ltd, trading as Effective Supermarket Solutions, are among those least able to defend themselves from such forces.

Some got their jobs through a community organisation, Personnel Employment, that places mentally and physically handicapped people into work.

They are, said the director of the Office of Workplace Services, Nicholas Wilson, "the most vulnerable of the vulnerable"."

US denies Guantanamo Bay prison shutdown imminent

2007-06-25T08:09:00.000+10:00

By Washington correspondent Michael Rowland

"The US plans to send some of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to a new jail in Afghanistan but denies it is on the verge of closing the detention centre.

Senior Bush administration officials have told US media outlets that the Government is nearing a decision to close Guantanamo Bay, because of concern about the damage it is doing to America's international reputation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino is denying any action is imminent but has again spoken of the President's desire to shut down the unpopular facility.

"The United States should not be the world's jailers - those are his words," he said."

Ruddock 'running secret political unit'

2007-06-20T16:31:00.000+10:00

"The Federal Opposition has demanded that Attorney-General Philip Ruddock explains claims that a secret taxpayer-funded political unit is operating out of his Sydney ministerial office.

Three Labor frontbenchers tried to move a motion to force Mr Ruddock to explain the unit in Parliament this morning.

Labor's Anthony Albanese said he wanted to know details of the alleged unit's funding and staffing arrangements.

The Government used its numbers to vote the motion down."

Yes Men Solve the Climate Crisis: Soylent Green

2007-06-16T08:21:00.000+10:00

"At the Gas and Oil Exposition in Calgary this week, Exxon Mobil executive Florian Osenberg told a rapt audience that the ongoing climate change crisis is no big deal because the dead people can provide "more feedstock."

In a rousing speech for 300 oilmen and oilwomen with partner Shepard Wolff, the executive reassured the crowd that, even if billions die from expected climate-change-related disasters, the industry will continue to prosper. The oil companies could "keep fuel flowing," said the execs, by turning all the dead people into oil.

Wolff "described the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum," according to a press release about the event. "3-D animations of the process brought it to life" and candles were lit in honor of an Exxon Mobil janitor who was the first to undergo the process. The speakers were quickly removed from the stage when it was learned, via a final video testimonial from the deceased, that the candles were the janitor.

Wolff defended his actions for waiting reporters, saying, "150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That's only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel." Calgary cops soon arrived, but could find nothing wrong as long as "the executives" agreed to leave the premises.

The executives being the Yes Men, of course. The Yes Men are two guys who impersonate executives from unlovable corporations, get their fake selves invited to speak at conferences, and embarrass the hell out of their targets. You can learn more at http://www.theyesmen.org. And don't forget to check out these hysterical pictures of the speech." —BRIAN FAIRBANKS

Bush To Be Dictator In A Catastrophic Emergency

2007-06-05T20:33:00.000+10:00

"The Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media. This is understandable considering the huge Ron Paul and immigration news but this story is equally as huge. In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a “Catastrophic Emergency” the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency."

Generation F*cked: How Britain is Eating Its Young

2007-06-05T19:53:00.000+10:00

"Chavs are the foot soldiers of corporate consumerism. They wear branded kit, congregate around halls of bland consumerism – shopping centers, cinemas, fast food outlets – and target anyone who stands out. Their chief weapon is not surprise, but a volley of inarticulate abuse and violence backed up by safety in numbers. Though they suffer from a dearth of so many intangibles in their young lives, one thing they do not know is real material poverty. They own expensive sports gear, expensive mobiles, watch Murdoch satellite channels on large flatscreen TVs, and aspire to a souped-up motor with a massive stereo system. They are not so much poor as culturally and imaginatively impoverished, because the main characteristic of Chavs is not social class but an utter lack of hope.

Once upon a time it was possible to grow up with a genuine pride in being working class. As the UK’s manufacturing sector declined, that pride has all but vanished. Shiny trinkets have bought off whole sections of the working class. That Chavs seek the more crass and vulgar ostentations of material wealth is just a refection having been colonized by consumer capitalism. The Chavs are Thatcher’s revenge."

Empire or Republic

2007-05-28T17:36:00.000+10:00

"While U.S. officials and their mainstream media supporters have been fairly successful in immunizing Americans from the horrors of the war, death has an interesting way of forcing people to face reality. The increasing number of casualties among U.S. troops has caused Americans to confront the war in Iraq, like it or not. Moreover, since Bush undoubtedly wants to continue the occupation until he leaves office, Iraqi insurgents will have plenty of time over the next two years to ensure that Iraq stays on the minds of the American people with well-planned ambushes and sniper attacks.

The Iraq intervention might well be the dead end of the pro-empire, pro-interventionist, “super-power” foreign-policy paradigm that has held our nation in its grip for decades. If so, then as the death and destruction continue to mount, Americans might well begin looking for an alternative paradigm – one that not only is workable but is also consistent with the principles of morality, liberty, and limited government on which our nation was founded."

'War on terror' leading to human rights erosions: Amnesty

2007-05-24T07:40:00.000+10:00

"Amnesty International says there has been a downward spiral of human rights worldwide, fuelled by what it calls the "politics of fear" following terrorist attacks in the US in 2001.

Amnesty says the the war in Iraq and what the United States calls its "war on terror" have led to an erosion of human rights and deep divisions across the world.

The group also criticises the repression of Europe's Roma communities, saying politicians are using fear of immigration and terrorism to justify tough measures against refugees and asylum seekers.

In a statement, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, said minorities around the world were under threat.

"We've seen a wave of xenophobia and racism against groups like Roma, we've seen a rise of Islamophobia and anti-semitism on the back of fear about security, about terrorism," she said.

"So in this way, what we see is a world enveloped in fear and fear being used by governments to create false certainties to avoid accountability."

- BBC"

Death in Iraq Spawns Grim Subcultures

2007-05-20T14:07:00.001+10:00

"The consequences of sudden and violent death _ so commonplace in Iraq's relentless turmoil _ have spawned their own macabre subcultures: the human vultures, grave markers with serial numbers for unidentified victims, tattoo artists asked to etch IDs on people afraid of becoming an unclaimed body amid the carnage and killings.

It's more than just another grim tableau in a nation brimming with sad stories. It points to how deeply war and sectarian bloodshed have reordered the way Iraqis live _ and confront the constant possibility of death."

The Iraq Information Crackdown

2007-05-20T14:04:00.000+10:00

"In the space of twenty-four hours what passes for the Iraqi government announced that news photographers, video and still, are forbidden to record images of the mayhem and murder after a bomb has gone off. No more of those pictures of the survivors, hands clapped to head, screaming in front of a smoking ruin, parts of human bodies, men racing to put the maimed into cars while sirens call the news of new horrors.

At almost the same time, the Pentagon had an announcement of its own to make. Henceforth our soldiers in Iraq will find MySpace, YouTube and eleven other websites blocked when they try to write home or post pictures and videos from military computers. This is the latest in an ongoing crackdown on our people blogging from Iraq. Never mind that much of what we know about this war comes not from commercial news outlets but from what servicemen and -women have sent back home through cyberspace."

Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason

2007-05-20T14:00:00.001+10:00

While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious."

Can Capitalism Be Green?

2007-05-15T20:46:00.000+10:00

"Stephen Leahy* - IPS/IFEJ

TORONTO, May 12 (IPS) - Capitalism has proven to be environmentally and socially unsustainable, so future prosperity will have to come from a new economic model, say some experts. What this new model would look like is the subject of intense debate.
One current states that continuous growth can be environmentally compatible if clean and efficient technologies are adopted, and if economies leave behind production of material goods and move towards services. This is known as sustainable prosperity."

Articles of Impeachment against Bush and Cheney

2007-05-07T12:57:00.000+10:00

"by Eternal Hope
Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 04:10:20 PM PDT

If we are to impeach, we must impeach both Bush and Cheney. It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office and pick someone just as radical as he is. It will also not do any good for us to impeach just Cheney and allow Bush to groom John "I'm not knowledgeable" McCain for the 2008 election. Therefore, we must simultaneously impeach both of them so that the 3rd person in succession, Nancy Pelosi, would become the next President of the United States.

What remains to be done is for us to work out articles of impeachment against the President. Others may surface after the Democrats begin their job of investigating and getting to the bottom of the matter. If the Bush administration obstructs or lies to the Congressional Committee chairs, those could in and of themselves be grounds for impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney."

Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity for phone companies

2007-05-07T11:38:00.000+10:00

"Retroactive immunity from prosecution is a beautiful thing if you're a major telecommunications provider in the US, and phone companies are about to receive it if the Bush administration gets its way. The administration's new appropriations request for intelligence agencies was recently disclosed at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it includes a massive gift to the phone companies who have been (can we drop the "allegedly" at this point?) helping the NSA and other agencies."

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63

2007-05-04T18:34:00.000+10:00

"A battle against a number"

Webcomics = Terrorism? Whaa?

2007-05-04T18:33:00.000+10:00

"I’ve been meaning to post about Three Panel Soul, the new comic by Ian and Matt of MacHall fame- unfortunately I’ve got to do so under less-than-wonderful circumstances. I love this new strip because I’m finding it a lot more minimalist and relatable… also ridiculously funny.

Matt was working as a contractor for a branch of the government. He made the mistake of being interested in the hobby of paper target shooting at about the same time as the VA Tech shootings and talking to someone about this hobby at work. Keep in mind he wasn’t even talking about those shootings, in fact he was discussing how he wanted a gun which would make it difficult to kill someone.

He was promptly fired and not allowed back to work because people were scared of him."

Top officials: Bush can still wiretap US citizens without warrant

2007-05-04T18:29:00.000+10:00

"Senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they believe the president still has the constitutional authority to continue his domestic wiretapping program without first seeking court approval.

"Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program," reports the International Herald Tribune."

Dogs show human-like learning ability

2007-05-04T17:41:00.000+10:00

"When dogs learn new tricks, they do not simply copy what they see, but interpret it, suggests a new study, which provides evidence that man's best friend possesses a human-like ability to understand the goals and intentions of others."

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

2007-05-01T17:49:00.000+10:00

"From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all."

Politics of fear damaging traditional values: Fraser

2007-05-01T08:58:00.000+10:00

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser says the Federal Government has used the politics of fear to damage traditional Australian values...He says Australia's international reputation as a force for good has been greatly diminished.

Mr Fraser says the Howard Government has demonised "boat people" and tried to turn the wider community against Muslims.

"What we do not know, we often fear," he said.

"What we do not understand, we fear, or can be led to fear. People from a different religion we often fear, and what we fear can be made to become a threat.

"The politics of these issues was exploited by the Government and has bitten deeply into the Australian psyche.

Student writes essay, arrested by police

2007-04-30T10:11:00.000+10:00

"High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.....[his father] added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now."

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

2007-04-17T21:20:00.000+10:00

"It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up."

Ruddock criticised over review board recommendation

2007-04-15T17:40:00.000+10:00

"The federal Attorney-General has come under fire for recommending a personal friend of John Howard to head the Classification Review Board.

The Victorian, New South Wales and South Australian attorneys-general say their federal counterpart Philip Ruddock is trying to appoint of former ABC chairman Donald McDonald as director of the Classification Review Board.

Victoria's Attorney-General Rob Hulls says the process is corrupt."

Bush backs World Bank chief

2007-04-15T17:36:00.000+10:00

"US President George W Bush continues to support World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz despite a scandal over pay raises and promotions given to his girlfriend.

"The president has confidence in Paul Wolfowitz and his work" at the World Bank, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Mr Wolfowitz, who was backed for the prestigious post by President Bush in 2005, was fighting for his political life on Friday (local time) after World Bank directors said they had not approved staggering pay rises for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a World Bank staffer."

Australian Governor General: Move to ban books

2007-04-13T18:07:00.000+10:00

"Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is asking his state and territory counterparts to ban books which advocate terrorism.

Mr Ruddock says current classification laws do not go far enough and says he wants all material advocating terrorism taken off the shelves."

Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

2007-04-12T17:36:00.000+10:00

"One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York."

No link between Iraq and al-Qaeda

2007-04-07T19:16:00.000+10:00

"Interrogations of Saddam Hussein and seized documents confirmed the former Iraqi regime had no links with al-Qaeda, a Pentagon report said today, contradicting the US case for the 2003 invasion.....According to the inspector general of the US Defence Department, information obtained after Saddam's fall confirmed the pre-war position of the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon intelligence that the Iraqi government had had no substantial contacts with al-Qaeda."

MapofSci

2007-03-20T12:03:00.001+11:00

ooH!

life in iraq

2007-03-20T11:56:00.000+11:00

"Reconstruction

Wars, sanctions and looting had left Iraq's infrastructure in ruins before the post-conflict insurgency took hold."

France cracks down on citizen journalism when violence is concerned

2007-03-12T14:39:00.000+11:00

"Citizens who videotape violent acts witnessed on the street and/or publish them online in France could now face jail time, according to a new law passed by the French Constitutional Council. Only "professional" journalists will be able to videotape and broadcast acts of violence. The purpose of the law is to prevent regular citizens from provoking fights in order to create video to post online and profit off of (à la "bumfights," or "happy slapping"—physically attacking someone to generate a reaction and take video), but the wording of the law is broad enough that it has some civil-liberties groups concerned."

Scientists Break Speed of Light

2007-03-12T14:22:00.000+11:00

"Scientists have finally exceeded the speed of light, causing a light pulse to travel hundreds of times faster than normal.

It raced so fast the pulse exited a specially-prepared chamber before it even finished entering it.

The experiment is the first-ever evidence of faster-than-light motion."

How the world really shapes up

2007-03-07T14:36:00.000+11:00

"We all know what the world looks like. But a new series of extraordinary maps shows our planet in a very different light.

Rather than defining each country by size, these computer-generated modified maps - or cartograms - redraw the globe with each country's size proportionate to its strengths, or weaknesses, in a whole series of categories.

For instance, when it comes to military spending, the U.S. appears bloated, but Africa is huge when HIV prevalence is mapped.

The cartograms were produced in a unique collaboration between the universities of Michigan in the U.S. and Sheffield. Here are images and more details on some of the most fascinating..."

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

2007-03-02T17:35:00.000+11:00

"SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack."

Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, and the Rest of the World

2007-02-27T13:46:00.000+11:00

"It’s very hard to predict the Bush administration today because they’re deeply irrational. They were irrational to start with but now they’re desperate. They have created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. This should’ve been one of the easiest military occupations in history and they succeeded in turning it into one of the worst military disasters in history. They can’t control it and it’s almost impossible for them to get out for reasons you can’t discuss in the United States because to discuss the reasons why they can’t get out would be to concede the reasons why they invaded."