Flexible Reality
Saturday, November 08, 2003
It's getting clearer now that several past National Champion caliber teams are not going to be there this year: Miami, Florida State, (who both lost today), Florida, Notre Dame, Penn State, and a bunch of others including Georgia, Tennessee, Auburn, Clemson, Alabama, among others. So who will it be? Oklahoma and, and, ....hmm, USC? Nah ! Well, who then? And how'd you like to bet against Oklahoma? They won 6 of their 10 games scoring more than 50 points, and in 9 of the 10 games beat their opponent by at least 21 points. But USC is not a Texan team you say? Ok...I'll give you USC and 13 points.
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
What World War I's Greatest Poet Would Say About Hiding Our War Dead
By ADAM COHEN
Published: November 9, 2003
When World War I broke out, the English saw going off to battle as a fine thing to do. They embraced the Latin poet Horace's dictum, "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori" — It is sweet and proper to die for one's country. But four years later, that romantic notion had been shattered by the grim reality of the mustard-gas-laced killing fields, and by the bitter words of Wilfred Owen, a British officer now recognized as the greatest poet of the Great War. Owen's subject was, he declared, "war, and the pity of war." He expressed it through dark word portraits, in which dead and dying young men were stripped of any glory or sentimentality. Owen himself became one of these inglorious casualties when he was killed in action at the age of 25, just days before the war's end, 85 years ago this week.
A revered figure in England, Owen found a large American following during the Vietnam War. He is often portrayed as antiwar, which he was not. What he stood for was seeing war clearly, which makes him especially relevant today. The Bush administration has been loudly attacking the news media for misreporting the Iraq conflict by leaving out good news. Owen would counter — in vivid, gripping images — that it is the White House, with its campaign to hide casualties from view, that is dangerously distorting reality.
Owen, who was commended posthumously for inflicting "considerable losses on the enemy," was no pacifist. He told his mother he had a dual mission: to lead his men "as well as an officer can" but also to watch their "sufferings that I may speak of them." Owen was right that an honorable approach to war requires both ably leading troops on the battlefield, and reporting honestly what occurs there.
The Bush administration, however, is resisting this honorable approach. In its eagerness to convince the public that things are going well in Iraq, it is leading troops into battle, while trying its best to obscure what happens to them. President Bush is not attending soldier funerals, as previous presidents have, avoiding a television image that could sow doubts in viewers' minds. He avoids mentioning the American dead — and the injured, who are seven times as numerous. The Pentagon has sent out emphatic reminders that television and photographic coverage is not allowed of coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base.
Americans are already considering the relative merits of staying the course in Iraq, putting in an international peacekeeping force, and even pulling out. It is a somber debate, with great consequences for this nation, and the world. We must enter into it with full information, without lapsing into what Owen trenchantly called "the old lie" — or new ones.
Dulce Et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen
First Published in 1921
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Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
NYTimes.com, Oct. 21, 2003
In Britain, the cost of tuition is largely borne by the government and students pay much less. For example, tuition alone for undergraduates at Harvard is currently $26,066 a year as compared with $1,840 at Oxford University.
November 5, 2003
Baghdad Scrambled to Offer Deal to U.S. as War Loomed
By JAMES RISEN
NY Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal. Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. The messages from Baghdad, first relayed in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi intelligence officers to open last-ditch negotiations with the Bush administration through a clandestine communications channel, according to people involved.
Urban Legend?
Claim: Newspaper publishes death notice requesting that memorial gifts for the deceased "be made to any organization that seeks the removal of President George Bush from office."
Status: True.
Example: [Associated Press, Nov. 3rd, 2003]
This was an actual obituary published in The Times-Picayune, New Orleans on 10/2/2003:
"Word has been received that Gertrude M. Jones, 81, passed away on August 25, 2003, under the loving care of the nursing aides of Heritage Manor of Mandeville, Louisiana. She was a native of Lebanon, KY. She was a retired Vice President of Georgia International Life Insurance Company of Atlanta, GA. Her husband, Warren K. Jones predeceased her. Two daughters survive her: Dawn Hunt and her live-in boyfriend, Roland, of Mandeville,LA; and Melba Kovalak and her husband, Drew Kovalak, of Woodbury, MN. Three sisters, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren, also survive her. Funeral services were held in Louisville, KY. Memorial gifts may be made to any organization that seeks the removal of President George Bush from office. "
Origins: A senior citizen who so despised the current president that, before she died, she left instructions directing that her memorial gifts should "be made to any organization that seeks the removal of President George Bush from office"? Yup. And there has been more than one!
US Diplomatic Missions in Saudi Arabia Close Due to Terror Threat
Voice of America
The United States has closed all its diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia after officials received what they said was a warning of a serious threat of terrorist attacks in the kingdom.
Red Cross pulling out of Baghdad
CNN - BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) --
The international Red Cross is closing its offices in Baghdad and Basra temporarily because of "extremely dangerous" conditions in Iraq, the organization said.
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From Aljazeera Poll
"Should sanctions be imposed to stop Israel building its so called security wall?"
Yes : 85%
No : 13%
Unsure? : 2%
Number of pollers : 2745
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Also from Aljazeera:
Report exposes Ugandan rebels' brutality
Tuesday 15 July 2003, 18:44 Makka Time, 15:44 GMT
A new report into Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group says abductions, torture, mutilations and the recruitment of child soldiers have increased sharply in the past year. "Since June 2002, the LRA has abducted approximately 8,400 children, resumed its despicable practice of mutilating people it believes to be affiliated with the government and targeted religious leaders, aid providers and other civilians," it said.
The LRA's 17-year war against the army in northern Uganda has been characterised by great brutality. The LRA is led by self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, said to take his orders from the Holy Spirit, which takes possession of his body. His force is made up mainly of children, thousands of whom have been abducted. Kony has said he wants to overthrow the government and rule Uganda by the biblical Ten Commandments.
Operation Iron Fist failed
In March 2002, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's army launched an unsuccessful military offensive to flush out the rebels from their bases in southern Sudan. "Operation Iron Fist had a boomerang effect in that the LRA, instead of being wiped out, evaded the UPDF in Sudan and returned to northern Uganda in June 2002 with new equipment, uniforms and training," the report by four groups including New York-based Human Rights Watch said. The 73-page report also accuses the Uganda People's Defence Force of rights abuses in the region, including torture, rape, summary executions and recruiting underage soldiers.
Reuters
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Friday, November 07, 2003
Late in Tuesday's Democratic Presidential Challenger debate, Wesley Clark told an instructive story about a homophobic friend.
"One of my Army friends came to me. He said, "Sir, I've got a little bit of trouble with your position on gays in the military." I said, "Well, let me explain it to you this way. If you had a son or daughter who was gay, would you love them? And he said, "Well, yes." I said, "Would you want them to have the same rights and the same opportunities in life as everybody else?" And he looked at me and he said, "Now I understand why you're saying what you're saying."
We need to do a lot better job in communicating in this society and crossing barriers. That's how outreach works. You don't spurn people who disagree with you, even on issues of segregation and discrimination. You communicate. You cross barriers. It's a good way to win elections—and to change the world.
NYTimes.com > Opinion
Flags Versus Dollars
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 7, 2003
Howard Dean's remarks about the need to appeal to white Southerners could certainly have been better phrased. But his rivals for the Democratic nomination should be ashamed of their reaction. They know what he was trying to say — and it wasn't that his party should go soft on racism. By playing gotcha, by seizing on the chance to take the front-runner down a peg, they damaged the cause they claim to serve — and missed a chance to confront the real issue he raised.
A three-sentence description of the arc of American politics over the past 70 years would run like this: First, Democrats and moderate Republicans created institutions — above all, Social Security and Medicare — that provided a measure of financial security to ordinary working Americans. The biggest beneficiaries of these institutions were African-Americans and working-class Southern whites, and both were part of the moderate-to-liberal coalition that dominated American politics until the 1960's.
But the right opened an increasingly effective counterattack, with a strategy that included using racially charged symbolism to get Southern whites to vote against their own economic interests. All Mr. Dean was saying was that Democrats need to understand and counter this strategy.
I know these are fighting words. But the reliance of modern Republican political strategy on coded appeals to racism is no secret. Controversies over efforts to remove the Stars and Bars from the top of the South Carolina Statehouse, and to reduce its size on the Georgia flag, played a significant role in Republican victories in 2002. And the evidence that race is still a crucial factor is as fresh as Tuesday's election.
The big story in that election was the victory of Republicans in Mississippi and Kentucky. The secondary story, however, was a string of victories by Democrats in affluent suburban areas in the Northeast. In my state, New Jersey, Democrats took firm control of the state's Legislature.
What this tells us is that some people — either in New Jersey, Mississippi or both — voted against their economic interests. For whatever you think of Bush's economic plan, it's clearly much better for New Jersey — a rich state, which gains a lot from tax cuts tilted toward the affluent — than for a poor state like Mississippi.
Consider, for example, the effects of estate tax repeal, a central feature of the 2001 tax cut. Almost nobody in Mississippi pays the estate tax. In 2001 only 249 estates in Mississippi paid any tax at all; raising the exemption to $5 million, which some Democrats suggested as an alternative to full repeal, would have reduced that to a couple of dozen. By contrast, New Jersey, with three times Mississippi's population, had almost 10 times as many taxable estates.
Or consider the 2003 tax cut. It was also heavily tilted toward the affluent, and therefore toward rich states. According to Citizens for Tax Justice estimates, the typical New Jersey family got a $409 tax cut. In Mississippi, the number was only $165.
So did Mississippi voters support the Republicans, even though they get very little direct benefit from Bush-style tax cuts, because they — unlike New Jersey's voters — understand the magic of supply-side economics? If you believe that, I've got an overpass on the Garden State Parkway you may be interested in buying.
Now maybe New Jersey voted Democratic because of irrational Bush hatred. But I think it's a lot more likely that white Mississippi voters, unlike their counterparts up north, are still responding to Republican flag-waving — and it's not just the American flag that's being waved.
Yet the fact is that Mississippi, being relatively poor, will lose disproportionately if the right wins on its full agenda, which involves a big rollback of New Deal and Great Society programs. (I'll explain in a future column how Republicans are using the prescription drug bill to lay the groundwork for later Medicare cuts.)
Mr. Dean wasn't suggesting that his party adopt the G.O.P. strategy of coded racial signals, and by and large African-Americans — my wife included — understand that. What he meant by his flag remark was that Democrats must make the case to working Americans of all colors that the right's elitist agenda isn't in their interest. And he's right.
Jessica Lynch Criticizes U.S. Accounts of Her Ordeal
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
NY TImes
Published: November 7, 2003
In her first public statements since her rescue in Iraq, Jessica Lynch criticized the military for exaggerating accounts of her rescue and re-casting her ordeal as a patriotic fable.
Asked by the ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer if the military's portrayal of the rescue bothered her, Ms. Lynch said: "Yeah, it does. It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. Yeah, it's wrong," according to a partial transcript of the interview to be broadcast on Tuesday.
After months of retreating from the news media, Ms. Lynch will be a ubiquitous presence next week. In addition to her appearance on ABC, she will be on the cover of Time magazine, and NBC will broadcast a movie based on an Iraqi's account of her ordeal. On Tuesday, the book publisher Knopf will release an account of her experience, "I Am a Soldier, Too," written with her cooperation by a former reporter for The New York Times, Rick Bragg.
The book and the movie are unrelated and tell different versions of Ms. Lynch's story, but the publisher has timed the book to capitalize on publicity from the television movie.
The book has already added another, lurid indignity to the public accounts of her capture. It reports that Ms. Lynch's military doctors found injuries consistent with sexual assault and unlikely to have resulted from the Humvee crash that caused her other wounds, suggesting that she was raped after her capture. Ms. Lynch, who was unconscious immediately after the crash, does not remember any such assault, according to people who have talked to her and read the book. Those details of the book's contents were reported yesterday in The New York Daily News.
In the book and in the interviews, Ms. Lynch says others' accounts of her heroism often left her feeling hurt and ashamed because of what she says was overstatement.
At first, a military spokesman in Iraq told journalists that American soldiers had exchanged fire with Iraqis during the rescue, without adding that resistance was minimal. Then the military released a dramatic, green-tinted, night-vision video of the mission. Soon news organizations were repeating reports, attributed to anonymous American officials, that Ms. Lynch had heroically resisted her capture, emptying her weapon at her attackers.
But subsequent investigations determined that Ms. Lynch was injured by the crash of her vehicle, her weapon jammed before she could fire, the Iraqi doctors treated her kindly, and the hospital was already in friendly hands when her rescuers arrived.
Asked how she felt about the reports of her heroism, Ms. Lynch told Ms. Sawyer, "It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that, because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell the story. So I would have been the only one able to say, yeah, I went down shooting. But I didn't."
And asked about reports that the military exaggerated the danger of the rescue mission, Ms. Lynch said, "Yeah, I don't think it happened quite like that," although she added that in that context anybody would have approached the hospital well-armed. She continued: "I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know, all I know was that I was in that hospital hurting. I needed help."
Lt. Col. Rivers Johnson, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, declined to comment on Ms. Lynch's views. But he said, "Essentially, the mission to rescue Jessica Lynch demonstrated America's resolve to account for all of its missing service members." He added that the rescue had been conducted under the appropriate procedures for a fluid situation like the war in Iraq. "You always plan for the worst."
Ms. Lynch also disputed statements by Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer, that he saw her captors slap her.
"From the time I woke up in that hospital, no one beat me, no one slapped me, no one, nothing," Ms. Lynch told Diane Sawyer, adding, "I'm so thankful for those people, because that's why I'm alive today."
Jeff Coplon, who helped Mr. Rehaief write his book, "Because Each Life is Precious," said it was possible that both he and Ms. Lynch were telling the truth in their divergent accounts.
"One of the questions that could arise in the wake of this kind of trauma is that someone could believe they remember everything and their memory could still be incomplete," Mr. Coplon said
The Egyptian Controversy Over Circumcising Girls
By: B. Chernitsky*?
"Circumcising Girls Prevents Unnatural Sexual Pleasure
Among the proponents of circumcising girls are Islamists who rely on medical, rather than religious, support for their arguments. The practice, they say, is beneficial to women's health, since it facilitates washing the genitalia and contributes to normal sexual relations.
A surgical specialist at Al-Azhar University, Dr. Muhammad Rif'at Al-Bawwab, provides an example, saying that women can wash and clean the genital area more easily if part of their sexual organ has been removed. In addition, he says, the clitoris protrudes more than other parts of a woman's genitalia, and "this protrusion causes it to rub against clothing and other things, which diverts the attention of the adolescent girl toward unnatural pleasure that is likely to make her addicted to it in an abnormal and damaging way… After marriage, it is difficult to prevent this from happening to a woman who has become accustomed to it. [The only way to deal with this situation is] to conduct sexual relations in an abnormal way, in which her clitoris is rubbed forcefully, as she has become accustomed [thus leading to her moral degradation].
"Therefore, the removal of the clitoris during circumcision greatly reduces [the chances] of this occurring. In this way, the woman remains unaware, and she finds enjoyment with her husband in the natural way, [only by] the male organ rubbing the woman's vagina and cervix, which are the source of her pleasure [and not via the clitoris]."
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This article makes the US discussion about "late-term" abortions sound quaint. What they share is an effort by Males to regulate Female sexuality and reproduction activities, as if some Mullah or President has the knowledge and experience to make decisions about a woman's body that they have no personal, professional, ethical, or moral jurisdiction over. Leave this to the individual woman and her chosen medical professionals !! not some damn religious or political person, especially if it's a Male !!!!
Say Muslim Guys, for sanitary purposes, to lessen the chances of moral degradation, and to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, why do you not support the removal of Male external genitalia?
The assassination of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq at the Najaf Mosque was conducted by US Forces, asserts this writer.The Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram's editorial of August 31, 2003, was titled "The Najaf Massacre and the National Unity Required in Iraq."
The Failure to Establish a 'Knowledge Society' in Arab Nations: Arab Human Development Report
By Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*.
WILLIAM SAFIRE: It's Iraq War III, and we have to fight to win
WILLIAM SAFIRE, New York Times
Published November 6, 2003
"Most television sets in the triangle depend for reception on the old rabbit ears, not satellite dishes; the Iraqi Media Network we set up is now operational but runs mainly old movies and canned messages from our Paul Bremer with an Arabic translation. I'm told by programmers in the contractor handling IMN, Science Applications International, that attention-getting Arabic programs produced in the gulf states will begin this month, which should attract many new viewers.
But why not supplement Bremer on the air with our secret weapon? John Abizaid, our commanding general, speaks fluent Arabic. He should be on radio and television regularly -- the live voice and face of liberation -- answering questions from Iraqi reporters in their native language. If Donald Rumsfeld can deliver the message of resolve on TV here, why not Abizaid there?"
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Some Interesting Stats About the Middle East Countries:
Note the Countries with the lowest GDP per person have some of the highest growth rates, and that the UAE stats are closer to that of Israel than to most other countries in the Region. Also look at the top four countries where the GDP is low, the birth rate is high, and the average age is fairly low...does that imply we will be involved in Syria in the near future?
Mark Dankof, Columnist with Global News Net has a few things to say about the American Religious Right and Israel.
While the economy might be showing signs of recovery, the job market isn't.
Survey: Job cuts more than double in Oct.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said Tuesday that in October companies announced plans to eliminate 171,874 positions, compared with 76,506 jobs in September. It was the highest monthly level since October 2002, when 176,010 job cuts were announced. (AP Graphic)
NEW YORK -- Job cuts announced by U.S. companies more than doubled in October from the previous month, providing more evidence that the nation's economy is in a period of jobless expansion, according to a report from an outplacement firm.
Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said Tuesday that in October companies announced plans to eliminate 171,874 positions, compared with 76,506 jobs in September. It was the highest monthly level since October 2002, when 176,010 job cuts were announced. The surge in October ended a streak of five months when job reductions fell below 100,000 per month. The lowest figure during that time was in June, with 59,715 jobs cut.
Hardest-hit was the automotive industry, which announced plans to eliminate 28,363 jobs in October. That was followed by the retail sector, which plans to cut 21,169 positions, and the telecommunications industry, which said it would slash 21,030 jobs. "While perhaps shocking to some, the October spike follows a trend of heavy year-end downsizing that has occurred since we began tracking job cuts in 1993," said CEO John A. Challenger. "In 2001 and 2002, October was the largest job-cut month in the fourth quarter."
He added that companies' increasing productivity has made it easier for them to further delay hiring plans. The migration of jobs offshore as well as increasing consolidation also have stunted job growth. "I don't think that this expansion has the potential to create 150,000 jobs a month - a number to get unemployment to go down," he said. "I think that this will be a meager job expansion." Challenger, Gray & Christmas's monthly report focuses on companies' planned cuts, not actual reductions. The data is based on tracking figures from the news media and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a new poll of human resources executives conducted by Challenger, 78 percent did not expect to see any significant upturn in hiring until the second quarter of 2004. None of the respondents forecast an upturn in the first quarter. Eleven percent said hiring would pick up in the third or fourth quarter. Eleven percent of those polled said that there would be no hiring rebound at all in 2004.
EFF request cease and desist ruling against Diebold
Civil rights groups sue electronic voting company over threats
RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Attorneys specializing in free speech on the Internet filed suit Tuesday against Diebold Inc., demanding the voting equipment company stop sending legal threats to organizations that publish its leaked documents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford University's Cyberlaw Clinic filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court. Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose is expected to issue a decision this week.
Computer programmers, Internet service providers and students from at least 20 universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have received the cease-and-desist orders from Diebold. Many groups are refusing to remove from their Web sites internal Diebold documents that they claim raise serious security questions and threaten the U.S. elections process.
Diebold executives could not be reached Tuesday, but spokesman Mike Jacobsen said in late October that the cease-and-desist orders do not mean the documents are authentic - nor do they give credence to advocates who claim lax Diebold security could allow hackers to rig machines. Jacobsen warned that some of the 13,000 pages of stolen documents may have been altered after they were stolen from the company's central server.
In March, a hacker broke into Diebold's servers using an employee's ID number, and copied company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999, Jacobsen said. The vast majority of the 1.8 gigabits of data contain little more than banal employee e-mails, routine software manuals and old voter record files. But several items seem to raise security concerns. In one series of e-mails, a senior engineer dismisses concern from a lower-level programmer who questions why the company lacked certification for a customized operating system used in touch-screen voting machines. The Federal Election Commission requires voting software to be certified by an independent research lab.
In another e-mail, a Diebold executive scolded programmers for leaving software files on an Internet site without password protection. "This potentially gives the software away to whomever wants it," the manager wrote in the e-mail. In August, the hacker e-mailed the data to voting activists, some of whom published stories on their Web logs. A freelance journalist at Wired News also received data and wrote about it in an online story.
The data was further distributed in digital form online, and it can still be found at dozens of sites - including some in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Italy. It's unclear how many sites link to the data. EFF staff attorney Wendy Seltzer said activists are trying to publicize alleged security breaches at Diebold, which has more than 50,000 touch-screen voting terminals nationwide. Publishing stolen documents from one of the nation's largest election equipment vendors, she says, is more important than honoring copyrights. "People are using these documents to talk about how the votes are counted," Seltzer said. "The First Amendment protects them." San Francisco-based EFF represents Online Policy Group, a nonprofit ISP that hosts the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
A long-delayed federal Internet tax bill that would turn a temporary moratorium on taxes on Internet access into a permanent ban is scheduled for debate today on the floor of the Senate.
Thursday November 06, 2003 06:55 - (SA)
WASHINGTON - Microsoft has launched a reward fund with $5 million to help track down creators of viruses and other types of malicious activity on the Internet.
The software giant is offering $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the authors of the MSBlast.A worm, designed to attack Microsoft's windowsupdate.com website. It is offering another $250,000 for information on the author of the Sobig virus, which attacked individual machines running Microsoft operating systems. The rewards are being offered worldwide, in an acknowledgement of the global nature of cybercrimes, the company said.
The announcement was made in Washington by Microsoft representatives, flanked by agents of the cybercrime divisions of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Secret Service and Interpol. "Malicious worms and viruses are criminal attacks on everyone who uses the Internet," said Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft.
"Even as we work to make software more secure and educate users on how to protect themselves, we are also working to stamp out the criminal behavior that causes this problem. These are not just Internet crimes, cybercrimes or virtual crimes. These are real crimes that hurt a lot of people. Those who release viruses on the Internet are the saboteurs of cyberspace, and Microsoft wants to help the authorities catch them."
Peter Nevitt, Interpol's director of information, systems, acknowledged it may be difficult to track and arrest some hackers or virus creators in countries where there may be no laws on computer crimes and few extradition treaties. But Nevitt said the agency is encouraging countries to use conventional laws such as those covering criminal damage to property to prosecute hackers and virus creators.
AFP
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Former HealthSouth Chief Indicted
HealthSouth Indictment
November 4, 2003
(RealVideo)
On The Web
By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer
Federal prosecutors today indicted former HealthSouth chief Richard Scrushy on 85 counts ranging from fraud to money laundering and charged him with playing a key role in a scheme that inflated the once high-flying health care company's earnings by $2.5 billion.
Scrushy, whose huge salary and lavish lifestyle have been cited as examples of corporate excess during the 1990's stock market boom, will become the first major chief executive to be charged under new federal rules that makes corporate leaders accountable for false and inaccurate financial statements.
Scrushy, 51, turned himself into federal officials in Birmingham, Ala., where HealthSouth is headquartered, and is scheduled to make his initial court appearance later today, according to the Associated Press. He has previously denied any allegations of wrongdoing, saying he was unaware of the accounting fraud.
More than a dozen other HealthSouth executives have already pleaded guilty as a result of the government's probe into massive accounting irregularities at the firm, which operates a network of about 1,700 outpatient surgical, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitation centers. Since the investigation began, HealthSouth investors have watched their shares plummet in value.
"The magnitude of this alleged fraud is staggering" said U.S. assistant attorney general Christopher Wray in a Washington, D.C. press conference. "Instead of telling the public the truth, Scrushy and his accomplices lied. They cooked Healthsouth's books and filed false financial statements with the SEC to cover up their scheme."
Since Scrushy's compensation was tied to his company's financial performance, the former chief executive officer and chairman reaped a huge windfall by inflating HealthSouth's earnings, prosecutors allege. Between 1996 and 2002, Scrushy earned $267 million in salary, bonuses and stock options.
Charges against Scrushy include conspiracy, securities, mail fraud and money laundering, according to the indictment, which was issued Oct. 29 but unsealed today.
In addition, he allegedly violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the wake of the Enron scandal, which requires chief executives to certify that their company's financial statements are true and accurate.
Tripp to Get Privacy Settlement
Defense Department Leaked Personal Information About Her
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 4, 2003; Page A13
Linda Tripp, who secretly taped Monica Lewinsky's confessions of a sexual affair with President Bill Clinton, will receive a lump-sum payment of $595,000 from the Defense Department to settle claims that officials violated her privacy by leaking personal information.
Under the terms of a court settlement announced yesterday, Tripp will also receive a retroactive promotion and retroactive pay at a higher salary level for 1998, 1999 and 2000.
The agreement ended four years of litigation. Tripp, who worked for the Pentagon as a public affairs specialist, sued the department alleging that officials released private information about her in retaliation for her role in the Lewinsky matter, which led to impeachment proceedings against Clinton. The Pentagon ultimately conceded that its officials had violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from releasing unauthorized personal information about Americans to nonfederal organizations. But Pentagon lawyers argued that the violations were minor.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan rejected Pentagon efforts to narrow Tripp's claims and urged the parties to work with a mediator to achieve a settlement. Tripp left the Pentagon in January 2001 with the change in administrations. She has since been reported to be battling breast cancer and has not worked.
One of her attorneys, Michael Kohn, said she intends to file for retirement benefits. But he held open the possibility that Tripp might apply for a federal job in the future. At her insistence, he said, the settlement does not restrict her right to work again for any branch of the federal government.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Monday, November 03, 2003
From the same EU Commission a report about the major worries of EU Member citizens:
1. Environment @ 63%
2. Unemployment @ 56%
3. Crime @ 49%
4. Poverty @ 44%
5. Drug Abuse @ 26%
6. Racism @ 22%
7. Aids @ 16%
8. Immigration @ 14%
9. Loss of Traditional Values @ 13%
10. Globalization @ 10%
11. Aging Population @ 8%
12. European Integration @ 4%
Meanwhile, from a portion of a 2002 Pew Research Survey about America worries:
1. Terrorism @ 91%
2. Immigration @ 60%
3. Nothing @ 21%
4. Unemployment @ 19%
According to a report for the EU Commission entitled: "Flash Eurobarometer" dated November 2003 the view of America's role in Iraq by European citizens is highly unfavorable, and untrusting of America's role in the rebuilding process.
In reply to questions, EOS Gallup European polling showed:
Q1: "Today would you say that the military intervention of the United States and their Allies in Iraq was justified?"
EU Total: 68% Not Justified, 29% Justified
Ranging from a high Not Justified rate of 96% in Greece, to a low Not Justified of 41% in Denmark
Q2: "In your opinion to whom should the management of the rebuilding of Iraq be entrusted?"
US: 18%; EU: 25%; UN: 58%; CPA: 44%
The UN & it's Peacekeeping Force is viewed much more favorably than any other option
Q3: "And in your opinion, who should finance the rebuilding of Iraq?"
US: 65%; EU: 24%; UN: 44%; CPA: 29%
Q4: "In your opinion who should guarantee security in Iraq during the period of rebuilding the country?"
US: 6%, US & UN MultiNational Under US Control: 11%; UN & Peacekeeping Force: 62%
Q9: "How would you evaluate the threat of terrorism in (our country) today?"
EU: 55% Strong Threat; 43% Weak Threat
For UK and Spain citizens 76% saw a strong threat
For Finland 94% saw a weak threat
Q10: "For each of the following countries tell me in your opinion if it presents or not, a threat to peace in the World?"
In Rank Order:
1. Israel @ 59%
2. Iran @ 53%
3. Korea @ 53%
4. United States @ 53%
5. Pakistan @ 48%
6. China @ 30%
7. India @ 22%
8. Russia @ 21%
9. The EU @ 8%
"In all EU Member States (with the exception of Italy), the majority of citizens believe that Israel presents the highest threat of all Nations to peace in the world with "Yes" results as high as 74% in the Netherlands."
<------------------------------------->
Europe 60 Percent of Europeans See Israel as Threat to Peace
VOA News via Pravda
01 Nov 2003, 06:44 UTC
A new survey reportedly shows that six out of 10 Europeans view Israel as a greater threat to world peace than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan.
A report published in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune says Europeans participating in the October poll were given a list of 15 countries and asked if any of them present a threat to world peace. Fifty nine percent said Israel was a threat. Eighty percent of those surveyed said Europe should be more involved in the Middle East peace process.
The poll, called the Eurobarometer, was conducted for the European Commission. Results are expected to be made public Monday. Survey encompassed 7,400 people. Five hundred in each of the 15 member states of the European Union. An international Jewish organization dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust calls the survey's results "shocking" and "racist." The Simon Wiesenthal Center says the result "defies logic" and shows that "anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society."
The poll also found that about two thirds of respondents think the war in Iraq was unjustified, and that the United States should pay the full costs of Iraq's reconstruction. More than half (54 percent) oppose sending any European peacekeepers to Iraq.
October 30th was Political Repressions Victim Day in Russia. Note this candid article in Pravda about political repression in Russia, and elsewhere.
Sunday, November 02, 2003
The Seminoles won big at Notre Dame on Saturday. ...and are still in the running for the National Championship, especially since Miami lost to NC State. However, Rix needs to make better decisions about when not to throw the ball ! Three TDs are fine; but three interceptions per game is not going to get it done against any of the other top five teams.
{Doctor's Without Borders: What Role do They Play in the World}
"Au Liberia, les enfants miliciens sont les forces irrégulières de l'intervention internationale"
LE MONDE | 01.11.03 | 13h59
Jean-Hervé Bradol, président de Médecins sans frontières (MSF).
Vous venez de passer dix jours au Liberia. quelle est aujourd'hui la situation à Monrovia ?
L'arrivée des casques bleus donne un peu de répit à une population traumatisée par les centaines de morts et les milliers de blessés dus aux combats entre factions armées, cet été.
Ces affrontements ont entraîné des déplacements, plus ou moins temporaires, de centaines de milliers de personnes. Une importante épidémie de choléra a également touché la ville. Dans un pays épuisé par des années d'instabilité et d'embargo international, se nourrir chaque jour est la préoccupation majeure des familles.
Au plus fort des affrontements, pourquoi MSF, à la différence d'autres organisations humanitaires, n'a-t-elle pas lancé un appel à une intervention militaire extérieure ?
Tout simplement parce qu'elle était déjà en cours ! Le principal mouvement rebelle - Libériens unis pour la réconciliation et la démocratie, LURD - avait ses bases à l'extérieur du Liberia, recrutait des combattants en partie guinéens ou sierra-léonais et bénéficiait d'un soutien américain. Le Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU n'a jamais trouvé à redire contre cette situation de fait lors de ses nombreuses réunions au sujet du Liberia.
Finalement, l'arrivée des casques bleus ressemble à la dernière étape d'une intervention politique et militaire internationale visant à chasser le président Charles Taylor, que les sanctions internationales n'avaient pas réussi à déloger. Les enfants miliciens de la rébellion, avec leur perruque et leur joint au bec, sont en quelque sorte les forces irrégulières d'une intervention internationale dont les casques bleus sont les troupes régulières. Il est difficile de penser, dans ces circonstances, que le sort de la population libérienne préoccupe ceux qui décident de telles interventions militaires.
Aujourd'hui, c'est le cas au Liberia, hier c'était le cas en Sierra Leone, où le Nigeria et le Royaume-Uni sont intervenus pour maintenir au pouvoir un ancien fonctionnaire international. Sous la direction de l'ONU, des Etats-Unis ou d'une autre puissance - le Royaume-Uni en Sierra Leone, l'Australie au Timor, la France en Côte d'Ivoire... -, nous assistons à la multiplication d'opérations menées au nom de la sécurité collective et d'une hypothétique morale universelle dans des pays en crise.
Dans un certain nombre de cas, l'implication prend la forme d'une action militaire directe en appui à l'une des parties au conflit, comme au Kosovo ou en Afghanistan. Dans tous les cas, ces interventions aux résultats incertains ne se déroulent pas sans faire des victimes. Le rôle des organisations humanitaires n'est pas de se faire l'auxiliaire de telles entreprises politico-militaires, mais de produire, en toute impartialité et indépendance, des secours adaptés aux besoins des populations affectées par les conflits. Il est donc compréhensible que nous n'appelions pas à de telles interventions, en dehors de circonstances exceptionnelles, comme lors du génocide au Rwanda, en 1994.
Si le but était la chute de Charles Taylor, la fin de son régime ouvre-t-elle la voie à la reconstruction nationale ?
Ce serait souhaitable pour une population dont une grande partie demeure inaccessible à l'aide internationale. Le rythme peu soutenu du déploiement des casques bleus à l'intérieur du pays est une indication de la précarité de la paix qui s'installe. Les Nations unies ont-elles un plan réalisable pour stabiliser le Liberia, que ses dirigeants s'acharnent à détruire depuis bientôt quatorze ans ? L'avenir le dira.
Lors du siège de Monrovia, des cadavres ont été déposés devant l'ambassade américaine. Les Libériens ne se défaussent-ils pas sur le monde extérieur, au lieu d'assumer la responsabilité pour leur propre guerre civile ?
Déposer les cadavres peut s'interpréter de deux façons : demander de l'aide à l'extérieur, mais également souligner la responsabilité américaine dans la reprise des combats.
Au Liberia, personne n'ignore l'hostilité des Américains à l'égard de Charles Taylor, leur complaisance vis-à-vis de la rébellion. Quand la situation dégénère au point où des roquettes tirées par la rébellion tuent des civils dans un camp de déplacés situé sur un terrain appartenant à l'ambassade américaine, il semble logique que les proches des victimes se tournent vers l'ambassade américaine en demandant à ce pays d'assumer les responsabilités d'une politique qui a entraîné la disparition de leurs parents.
Les Etats-Unis ayant refusé de venir au secours, les Nations unies ont à présent le Liberia à charge. Avec quelles chances de succès, face à quelles attentes ?
Nos patients et nos collègues libériens expriment un immense espoir, après tant d'années de guerre et de misère, vis-à-vis des Nations unies. Cet espoir est à la mesure de leur défiance à l'encontre des hommes politiques de leur pays. D'un autre côté, ils ont déjà fait l'expérience des interventions des Nations unies, ces dernières années, et ont eu l'occasion d'en mesurer les difficultés.
Dans cette situation, quelles sont les priorités de MSF au Liberia ?
Offrir des soins médicaux gratuits, d'une qualité raisonnable, aux groupes de populations les plus affectés par la guerre à Monrovia et dans les régions les plus déstabilisées à l'intérieur du pays. Concrètement, nous sommes responsables de 400 lits d'hospitalisation, de cinq cliniques, de cinq centres de traitement du choléra, de plusieurs centres de réhabilitation nutritionnelle dans Monrovia.
La prochaine étape consistera à déployer le même type de secours à l'intérieur du pays, où quelques équipes sont déjà en place. Plusieurs missions exploratoires sont en cours, mais, jusqu'à présent, les conditions de sécurité, en particulier dans la zone tenue par les rebelles du LURD, n'ont pas été suffisantes.
Propos recueillis par Stephen Smith
� ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 02.11.03
Pravda.RU:Russia:
17:16 2003-10-30
Russian Constitutional Court confirms journalists' right to freedom of expression during election campaign
The Russian Federation Constitutional Court confirmed journalists' right to freedom of expression during the election campaign.
"The positive or negative opinion of some candidates is not part of an election campaign and can't be a ground for bringing media representatives to administrative account," says the court ruling voiced by RF Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin on Thursday. In the court's opinion, "journalists' opinion and their comments" or "expression of preference for this or that candidate" are not part of an election campaign either, just like distributing information unrelated to the candidate's current professional activity, says the CC ruling on the case that was brought up on the initiative of a number of journalists and on the request by a group of State Duma deputies.
Thus, the RF Constitutional Court ruled that a provision of a subclause of clause 2, article 48 of the federal law "On the Main Guarantees of Franchise and the Right of Russian Federation Citizens to Participate in Referendums" was unconstitutional and infringed upon the freedom of mass media. In the court's opinion, this provision "allows broad interpretation of the very notion and types of banned election campaigns, and thus does not rule out optional use of this norm." The RF Constitutional Court gave a clear definition of an election campaign and limited to the minimum the scope of information that can be regarded as part of it.
