Cut the high-tech noise in ChinaIMAGINE what would have happened if during the 1980s an American communications company had provided information that allowed the South African government to track down and imprison an anti-apartheid activist. That is pretty much the moral equivalent of what Yahoo has just done in China in the case of journalist Shi Tao. And the California-based Web giant deserves the same kind of public opprobrium that would have fallen on any Western company that dared to publicly cooperate with the enforcers ... (more)
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Chinese try to break nuke talks standoffBeijing -- The United States joined North Korea Saturday in raising objections to a Chinese compromise proposal designed to break a stalemate in six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and the chief U.S. negotiator, said he and other diplomats were consulting with their governments to come as close as possible to China's new suggestions, which seek to bridge a U.S.-Nort... (more)
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Blair relished ‘first blooding’ in Iraq, claims No 10 diary DOWNING Street was embarrassed last night after a frank account of the tantrums and cynicism of Tony Blair’s inner circle were published in the diaries of a former No 10 aide.
The prime minister’s office censored parts of the diaries, the first memoirs from a No 10 spin doctor.
Lance Price, a former deputy to Alastair Campbell, reveals in his book, The Spin Doctor’s Diary, that:
Blair privately seemed to “relish” sending... (more)
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Iran warning on sanctions threatIran has warned the UN's atomic agency not to refer it to the Security Council over its nuclear programme.
A referral could lead to UN sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Tehran hinted that such a move could prompt it to start uranium enrichment as well as a uranium conversion process that has already been resumed.
The remarks came after the UK foreign secretary described as "unhelpful" an assertion by Iran's president that Iran had a right to pro... (more)
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US Ambassador To Iraq Predicts US Will Go Into Syria…Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, made the off the record prediction that the US will go into Syria to combat insurgents that have been using the country as a staging ground for terrorist activity in Iraq.
Ambassador Khalilzad’s comments were made at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend.
In attendance at the conference, among others were: Harvey Weinstein, Brad Grey, Michael Eisner, Les Mo... (more)
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Many Iraqis believe ’suicide’ bombings done by US to start a civil war A suicide bomber sparked Baghdad’s worst day of slaughter since the fall of Saddam 30 months ago when he lured labourers desperate for work towards his van by offering them jobs and then detonated explosives that killed 114 and injured 156 of them.
On a day when more than a dozen co-ordinated attacks thundered across Baghdad from dawn into the late afternoon - claiming 152 lives and wounding 542 - al-Qa’ida in Iraq said it was retaliating against a US-Iraqi operation ... (more)
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Plan to cut number of UK troops in Iraq is scrappedSecret plans by the Government to reduce troop numbers in Iraq have been shelved - and there is now no official date for the withdrawal of British soldiers, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
The decision comes as ministers prepare to announce an unexpected redeployment of up to 6,000 members of the 7th Armoured Brigade - the renowned Desert Rats - in the conflict zone next month. This follows growing concerns that Iraq is heading into full-scale civil war.
Under the ... (more)
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New trigonometry is a sign of the times: Dr Norman Wildberger, has rewritten the arcane rules of trigonometry and eliminated sines, cosines and tangents What's more, his simple new framework means calculations can be done without trigonometric tables or calculators, yet often with greater accuracy.
Established by the ancient Greeks and Romans, trigonometry is used in surveying, navigation, engineering, construction and the sciences to calculate the relationships between the sides and vertices of triangles.
"Generations of students have struggled with classical trigonometry because the framework is wrong," says Wild... (more)
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Putin Won't Support U.N. Action Against IranPresident Bush won no support from Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday in his bid to bring Iran before the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions and acknowledged he has not yet forged an international consensus on how to deal with Tehran's alleged nuclear program.
After a meeting at the White House, Bush and Putin emerged to reaffirm their friendship and emphasize that they both oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. But Putin offered no backing for the tougher appro... (more)
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Shorter New York Times: FEMA Still Sucks.NYT has a lengthy article about how FEMA is unable (or unwilling?) to get their sh*t together and help people. It's a long read, so I boiled it down for you.
FEMA - the same federal agency that botched the rescue mission - is faltering in its effort to aid hundreds of thousands of storm victims, local officials, evacuees and... (more)
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New York Man Claims Sex DiscriminationALBANY, N.Y. -- Michael Cunningham has filed a $1 million one lawsuit against his employers at the New York Department of Labor, alleging a lack of promotion opportunities for men.
Cunningham is the department's director of training. His suit names the Labor Department's top three officials as defendants.
In the suit, Cunningham said he complained to his immediate supervisor -- a woman -- about a lack of minority hiring and promotions. He also told her that all of t... (more)
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Sheehan: Get troops out of 'occupied New Orleans'Mother of slain soldier decries 'military and governmental fascism'
Fresh from a visit to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, anti-Bush activist Cindy Sheehan is demanding the U.S. military be removed from "occupied New Orleans."
In a dispatch on leftist filmmaker Michael Moore's website, Sheehan said she was troubled by the "level of the military presence" in the Gulf Coast state.
<... (more)
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FEMA's City of Anxiety in FloridaPUNTA GORDA, Fla. -- "Someone killed my dog," sputtered Royaltee Forman, still livid two weeks later.
"They just threw him out the window and hung him with his own leash," he said, convinced that someone broke into his home while he was out. "I mean, what kind of place has this become?"
Forman's place is FEMA City, a dusty, baking, treeless collection of almost 500 trailers that was set up by the federal emergency agency last fall to house more than 1,500 people mad... (more)
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Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victimsIn the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the... (more)
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Power crews diverted - Restoring pipeline came firstShortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.
That order - to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. - delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt.
At the time, gasoline was in short supply across the coun... (more)
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U.K.: Detention Plan Amounts to Punishment Without TrialThe British government's proposal to extend the period that terrorism suspects can be detained without charge will undermine the rule of law and human rights, Human Rights Watch said today.
The proposal is one of several problematic measures contained in draft counterterrorism legislation published yesterday by the Home Office.
"The Law Lords last year rightly ruled that detention without trial is illegal and unacceptable," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asi... (more)
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Blair defends anti-terror plansPrime Minister Tony Blair has defended plans to toughen up the UK's anti-terrorism laws.
He was speaking after draft laws were published, including new offences of "glorifying" terrorism.
Civil liberties groups have attacked plans to extend the time terror suspects can be held without trial and to deport more people.
Mr Blair said such fears had been "exaggerated" and rights had to come with responsibilities.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today... (more)
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Sharon fears arrest if he visits LondonBRITAIN is desperate to avoid a diplomatic row with Israel after Ariel Sharon apparently snubbed an invitation from Tony Blair to visit London, claiming that he feared arrest.
The Israeli Prime Minister is understood to have cited the case of a senior general who narrowly escaped detention at Heathrow on war crimes charges last week. Doran Almog remained on an El Al Boeing 747 rather than risk falling into the hands of Scotland Yard after a human rights group lodged charges that c... (more)
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Is 'Peak Oil' a put on?September 17, 2005—It seems so easy to believe this idea. Oil contributes greatly to polluting the environment. The industrial age has intensified its use greatly. The more we use, the more we lose fresh air, even the ozone. And therefore it seems almost divine justice that we are about to exhaust this so-called "fossil fuel" within several decades and two hundred years, this cursed blessed hydrocarbon which took millions of years to produce.
And, therefore, it almost seems ... (more)
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Author Asks, Will Big Brother Track Your Every Move?Hundreds of thousands of people went missing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Weeks later, government officials, family members, friends, and a shocked and grief-stricken world still have not counted the dead or located the displaced and scattered survivors, whoever and wherever they are. Is there a better way to keep track?
Lawmakers and technology researchers have been gearing up for years with high-tech devices to enable us to keep track of our citizens under al... (more)
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Katrina Corpses Get ‘Chipped’: Verichip implanting RFID tags in corpses in MississippiA company that makes ID chips for humans said Friday it has started “chipping” corpses in the Katrina-ravaged region of Mississippi to help expedite the identification process.
Florida-based VeriChip said it has already implanted radio frequency identification (RFID) tags into 100 corpses in the state for the Mississippi State Department of Health.
The company, which is a subsidiary of publicly traded Applied Digital Solutions, said it is also in talks w... (more)
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RFID Verichips used to track dead after KatrinaDisaster relief crews are adopting radio frequency tags to help them identify victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The U.S. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) and health officials in Mississippi's Harrison County are implanting human cadavers with RFID chips from VeriChip in an effort to speed up the process of identifying victims and providing information to families, VeriChip said Friday. In addition, the County Medical Examiner's office in Lafayette County, Miss., sai... (more)
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Why You Should Resist the National ID CardPrison Planet | September 16 2005
This piece focuses on the introduction of the British national ID card but the same principles can be applied in any country.
1) A government engaging in escalating criminal actions and becoming more and more secretive should not be watching and tracking us as if we're all criminals. The same goes for CCTV ... (more)
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