March 30, 2004
Grapes of Wrath
For many poor women in Sudan, wine making is the only way to make a living. In fact, it is a traditional practice in the south of Sudan. Unfortunately for many women, making wine is illegal under the Islamic Sharia-based law of northern part that nation. More than 90 percent of the women imprisoned in the Omdurman prison in Khartoum since 1992 have been sentenced for making wine.
South Sudanese Women Flood Prison for Wine Making
Sat Mar 6, 2004 09:55 AM ET
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Suma Alisa, in Sudan's largest women's prison for the second time in eight months for making wine, says she has no other way to support her nine children.
Wine making is illegal under Islamic sharia law, introduced in Sudan in 1983, and has been a contentious issue in peace talks to end a bloody 21-year-old civil war in the south of the country that has killed two million people, mostly through famine and disease.
Alisa, a 35-year-old widow, is one of an estimated three to four million Sudanese internally displaced by the fighting that broadly pits the Islamist government against the mainly Christian and animist south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.
Many southerners come to the capital seeking refuge from the fighting, but find they have no access to education or health care and little hope of finding a job in overcrowded Khartoum.
Arafa Sheikh Musa, head of al-Manar (the beacon) a non-governmental group that works in Omdurman women's prison in Khartoum, says about 88 percent of inmates are from the south and prison statistics show that since 1992 more than 90 percent are guilty of wine making.
Wine making, while illegal in the Islamist north, is a tradition in the south of Africa's largest country and many of those involved do not realize they are breaking the law, Musa said.
Even those who know it is illegal find it profitable in dry Khartoum and say it is the only way to make enough money to feed their families while remaining at home to look after them.
"I was making tea and working in someone's house to make money but then there was no one to look after the children," said Alisa, 35, cradling her two-month-old son in the prison courtyard.
Asked if, when released from her three-month sentence, she would continue to make wine, her eyes filled with tears: "I know it's illegal but I don't know what else to do. I have no family and no home, just a shelter and that has collapsed now."
CHILDREN IN PRISON
Al-Manar which provides food for the 250 to 350 children brought into the prison every month by mothers who have no family to look after their youngest. Continued ...
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtmltype=ourWorldNews&storyID=4511160
Fire cuts off 130,000 UK phone lines
More than 130,000 telephone lines remain blocked in the North West after a fire started in a BT tunnel in Manchester city centre.
Emergency services have been affected, and police say it is a major incident.
Fire crews had to climb down 30 metres and then crawl 150 metres to get to the fire, which began at about 0330 BST.
BT engineers have gained access to the tunnel after it was closed for most of the day. It is not yet known how long it will take to repair the damage.
Telephone lines have also been affected outside Manchester, with problems with Cheshire's 999 service.
Phone lines are also down in Merseyside, Lancashire and north Derbyshire.
Greater Manchester Ambulance Service said it had been put under "extreme pressure" after the blaze damaged its radio network.
'Working tirelessly'
The control centre is using mobile phones to contact emergency crews.
An ambulance spokeswoman said: "We send messages out to ambulances via radio, but that is not working at the moment.
"We are extremely busy and we are working tirelessly to get the radio up and running.
"At the moment it is not affecting emergency and 999 calls, but we are extremely busy and the situation is being monitored and extra staff have been brought in."
Emergency calls in Cheshire were also affected as 10,000 phone lines in the east of the county went down.
We will have to ventilate the tunnel before BT engineers can go down there, so the disruption is likely to continue for some time
Assistant divisional officer Ian Bailey
A Cheshire Police spokesman said: "Our ability to receive 999 calls has not been affected but the ability of people using those 10,000 lines to make 999 calls from land lines may have been.
"We would urge them to use mobile phones."
The force also increased patrols in the areas where phone lines were not working.
Assistant divisional officer Ian Bailey, of Greater Manchester Fire Service, said the fire itself was not too serious but reaching it proved problematic.
He said: "The firefighters needed breathing apparatus and were using a lot of air up by the time they reached the fire, so we had a high turnover of firefighters."
Internet affected
Firefighters had to ventilate the tunnel before BT engineers were allowed down.
Freeserve, the internet service provider, said customers in the Manchester area had experienced difficulties with their broadband connections as a result of the fire while AOL said its customers in the area, who are connected to the BT network, would also experience problems.
A BT spokesman said: "We don't know what caused the fire at this stage but it is affecting more than 130,000 homes and businesses in Manchester."
The firm described the damage to the cabling as extensive.
BT said fixing the ambulance radios was the top priority, but could not give a timescale.
Anyone wishing to report a non-urgent incident was asked to wait until full phone service had resumed.
People experiencing problems with their telephones were also asked not to report the fault.
March 29, 2004
Teacher watches porn at school to avoid trouble at home
OSAKA (JAPAN) -- A teacher has been slapped with a one-month pay cut for watching a pornographic video at school, fearing the wrath of his family if he was caught watching it at home, officials said Monday. (via fark)
"I would have been in big trouble if I was caught watching the video at home, so I have been carrying it around in my bag," the 46-year-old teacher was quoted as saying when questioned by Osaka Prefectural Board of Education officials.
The teacher at a junior high school in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture, borrowed the pornographic movie at a video rental shop on the night of Feb. 26, and brought it with him to school the next day.
Before classes began, he watched about 10 minutes of the film using a video deck in the science room.
When he left the room, he failed to remove the videotape from the deck, and students who attended a class there later happened to play it, the officials said.
Some female students in the class were apparently shocked by the pornographic film. (Wire reports, Japan, March 29, 2004)
March 21, 2004
Year later, rally returns
Li Fellers and Carlos Sadovi, Tribune staff reporters, write:
Beating drums and waving signs denouncing the Bush administration and calling for peace, thousands of demonstrators marched peacefully Saturday through the streets of downtown Chicago to mark the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
Some were parents with children, some were elderly couples, and some were anarchists. Their nearly 2-mile trek from the Chicago Water Tower on Michigan Avenue to Federal Plaza in the Loop was one of many protests held around the world Saturday.
"Every day I wake up and hear about more and more people killed. I'm so angry, I don't know what to do other than come out here," said Lee Jaffe, 76, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Evanston.
They stepped off from Chicago and Michigan Avenues, where hundreds of demonstrators were detained and arrested last year, a day after the start of the Iraq war. This year, police said there were three arrests among the estimated 5,000 who marched.
Around the country, the roughly 250 war protests ranged from solemn to brash.
Thousands marched in San Francisco, including the Hayward, Calif., chapter of Grandmothers for Peace. Police arrested 82 people who were blocking traffic. In Manhattan, protesters filled more than a dozen police-lined blocks. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated the crowd at about 30,000, but organizers later said there were more than 100,000.
In Montpelier, Vt., hundreds of silent protesters placed a pair of shoes on the Statehouse steps for each of the more than 560 U.S. soldiers killed in the war.
Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and other European countries also saw protests, while demonstrations took place earlier in Japan, Australia and India. About 500 protesters clashed with police outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. No injuries were reported.
In Chicago, Stuart Iseminger, 38, held the hands of his two sons Levi, 7, and Noah, 5.
"I brought them out here to know that when we disagree with leaders, we can march and let them know how we feel," said Iseminger, a social worker from Logan Square. He said he had brought his sons to last year's march in Chicago as well.
The most significant conflict Saturday was a dispute over whether protesters would be allowed to march on Michigan Avenue, a route the police said posed too much of a safety risk as shoppers and tourists packed the Magnificent Mile on a sunny afternoon.
With more than 1,000 police officers in riot gear on duty, and with prisoner buses used as barriers to channel the march away from Michigan Avenue, the impasse ended when Rev. Jesse Jackson stepped in and told the organizers to accept the Police Department's route.
Jackson addressed the crowd at Michigan and Pearson Street, drawing huge cheers as he called for voters to elect a new president in November.
"The money to pay police is going to Iraq. The money to pay firemen is going to Iraq. The money to pay teachers is going to Iraq," Jackson said. "The administration has a narrow view of the world. It uses its power recklessly."
The march progressed along Chicago Avenue and south on Clark Street, with onlookers scattered all along the way.
Responding to organizers' criticism that the police presence was overkill, Chief of Patrol James Maurer said the department was prepared.
"You see the results," he said. "Nobody got hurt, and nothing got broken."
The demonstration drew some war supporters who called the protest unpatriotic.
Before the demonstration began, Charles Bolwin, 55, of Aurora, a Vietnam veteran, held up a sign near the Water Tower criticizing presidential candidate John Kerry's anti-war stance.
"I'm supporting [the troops] instead of demonstrating against them," said Bolwin, an employee with the Illinois Department of Transportation who was dressed in fatigues and wore a Purple Heart.
About an hour before the demonstration at Federal Plaza ended, a group of motorcyclists revved the engines of their Harley-Davidsons a block away, creating a roar that temporarily drowned out the anti-war speeches on the dais.
About three dozen people joined Ald. James Balcer (11th) at the Veterans Memorial at Soldier Field to show support for the troops. Balcer said the event was not meant to make a statement for or against military intervention in Iraq, but only to send a message of gratitude to men and women in the armed forces.
Some protesters downtown said they have family members serving in Iraq.
Linda Englund and her husband, Dean, a Vietnam veteran, carried handmade signs bearing a photo of their son in his Army uniform standing in front of a tank. Spec. John Englund has been in Iraq since February and was injured in a bomb attack on his Humvee, she said.
"We're protesting the war, not the military," said Englund, 54, of Rogers Park. Bush "is trying to kill our son and other sons for lies."
Michael Huft, 55, an attorney, and his wife, Charlotte Gyllenhaal, 55, a research scientist from Glenview, said they support the soldiers but disagree with the war.
"We're praying for the safety of the individual troops in Iraq," Gyllenhaal said.
Wheaton College student Aaron Brown, 20, said his beliefs prompted him to voice concerns about the war.
"It really bothers me [that] Bush is using Christian words" to talk about war, Brown said. "It's double-speak. I feel that as a Wheaton student, I need to represent that the kingdom of God is not based on or represented by violence."
Ellen Rebman, 19, a College of DuPage student from Wheaton, said she was protesting because her boyfriend, an Army reservist, may be sent to Iraq. She participated in a longer march that started early Saturday morning in the Pilsen neighborhood and passed through the Loop.
"Someone you love is going to someplace dangerous like that, to a place you don't support," Rebman said. "My boyfriend is probably leaving. My boyfriend might never come back."
March 17, 2004
(11-M) A chronicle of the four most intense days in Spain
malkuth, kuro5hin.org user, writes:
A personal chronicle about the four most intense days many of us in Spain have had in our whole life: from the 11-M killings, through the government disinformation, to the final results which kicked the Popular Party out of the government.
On thursday, we soon knew about what happened in Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia. At home we were unable to react: it is so much, to think something like that has happened. As time passes tears and horror for what has happened come. We don't understand anything, ETA has put Titadine explosives in several trains in Madrid, the death toll is higher and higher. We watch the images, all that has happened in this black morning. I remember I've been in that station, Atocha, hundreds of times to go to my university, in those familiar trains which I could mentally describe without any effort: and I know there are lots of tragedies everywhere, but the pain is unbearable as I only have to close my eyes to imagine the faces of the people who travel there with me daily,...
I remember I was a bit upset about the motto of the demonstration that was called for the next day: the 'for the constitution' part was a way to try to exclude some separatist democratic parties in Spain when the important thing was to be all together after this. Anyway, a friend tells me, the government could have used it much worse.
As the day passed, and friday dawned, it seemed Al-Qaeda terrorists had claimed the killings in a letter to a british newspaper. Otegui, leader of an illegalized political party near to ETA, says it has not been ETA, but the government discredits every opinion against the ETA theory, even as a van with a cassete with koranic verses is found on thursday afternoon. Something smells really bad, and friday there is the official march in Spain streets.
Soon in friday afternoon, the ABC (right-wing, pro-gov) newspaper and some others tell that the police says the explosives weren't Titadine as the government told us: the explosives composition and detonators have been analyzed, they do not come from ETA. Albeit, the government insists again it has been ETA though they do not discard 'other possibilities'. However, the only proofs for the present tell us it has been islamic terrorism: and we realize that the government has been lying us since the first time the Security Minister told us it was Titadine, which is why we were convinced it was ETA. They've been consciously lying us from the beginning, because they fear an islamic attack will make them lose the Prime Minister and parliament polls on sunday (they went to the Iraq war opposed to 90% of the spanish people who were against)
I go to the anti-terrorist march with a few friends, which is like a strange reality: the march is anti-ETA, and we are surrounded by people shouting things like "Otegui, get in the train". I have a placard which reads "no more lies", we distribute pamphlets, we talk with the people and tell them the Titadine thing, and all the reasons why they've been lied to: that we have to ask questions.
Saturday, it is our "reflection day", in which voters think about the polls and it is forbidden to make any political propaganda. Late in the afternoon, the Security Minister Angel Acebes tells five people - three arab, two hindu - have been arrested and are related to the bombings, but that still ETA is the main investigation line. Acebes is quite nervous, he avoids the questions he is asked on if isn't it logical to discard the ETA theory, as also ETA has denied it officially. In TVE (national public television), they cut the images before the journalists ask any questions. In Navarra, a policeman has killed one person related to ETA jailed support organizations, as he didn't hang a spanish flag with a black ribbon: what I know is, it is the hate that is being spread from the government through all their media since the killings what has provoked this spark which has led to yet another death.
It is too much. A friend calls me about eight o'clock, there are spontaneous marches in all Spain in front of the headquarters of the party in government (PP) to demand the truth; there is no political party behind the demonstrations, they've been started by SMS and Internet forums.
We get to the PP headquarters in Genova Street, Madrid, at about 9 o'clock. While on the bus we talk with people who is outraged on what the government is doing. When we walk up the Paseo del Prado street we hear someone shouting from a car: "Voto util!!!" ("useful vote", which means, voting the main opposing party to the PP). In Genova Street there are about five thousand people. We shout we want the truth, "your wars, our deaths", "liars", "we want to be on public television", "The bombs of Iraq explode in Madrid". The behaviour is civilized: shouting and asking for answers, but without any incidents. Some moments it is too much; nervousness, uncertainty, all the things that have happened these days come to my head; the deaths, the lies, everything is just too much, and there are some moments I think I just can't bear it anymore; but I compensate it with the enormous love to all the people that is around me wanting to know, sharing with them the beauty in moments like when a Samur Ambulance passes through the people to assist someone that has fainted and we let it pass making a clear line for it around which we give them a strong loving applause.
The elections legal organism decides we are illegal. Mariano Rajoy, PP candidate, the same one that has given an interview in the "reflection day" to the "El Mundo" newspaper requesting from people to have a sound victory, appears outraged on the public television, and demands us to leave: tells us we are illegal, we are pressing for the polls. When we are told that, the people react and all shout, "¡si esto es ilegal, lo vuesto que sera!" ("if this is illegal, how do we call what you're doing")
We then go to Sol Square, at 0:00 we continue the demonstrations in Madrid there. It is absolutely full, several thousands of people. As midnight comes, people shout to ask for a minute of silence for the victims, which will happen as the Sol clock bell strokes sound alone in the square. Meanwhile, in the public television TVE, a very popular program (Noche de Fiesta) is suddenly replaced by a movie-documentary about ETA terrorism. We go home at two o'clock, and as we go up Alcala, there are lots of people which are going to Sol to continue the march: they will go to Atocha then, then to Genova and the PP headquarters again, I read they end at six o'clock in the morning.
Pressured, fearful for the will of their people who want to know, who have organized themselves against their lies, the government tells us before dawn that a video was sent on saturday to Telemadrid TV station (regional public Madrid one): in it, islamic terrorism tells again they are the ones who bombed Madrid.
And the next morning, we've got to vote.
On Sunday, the Popular Party is kicked out from the government: the Socialist Party wins, and we breathe. Because a victory of the PP would have confirmed governments can lie in this democracy and avoid paying for it, that you can continuously lie and people will not ask. That media coup d'etats can be done. The confrontation politics that they've practiced these four years governing alone can get to an extreme on which they consciously lie about the most serious terrorist attack to Spain in its whole history: they lied about it to stay in power, and they did it even as they knew on monday we would know what really happened. Their only concern were the polls, from the beginning.
But the people have said we have enough: we don't want any more lies from those who got us into a criminal war we opposed and now play with those who have died in Madrid when the bombs got back. As we shouted on saturday, "The bombs of Iraq explode in Madrid".
The media coups d'etat by which the PP tried to silence us and conceal the truth from our eyes, was combatted against by our words in the streets, in every place where it was possible. Now, the elections are over, and our message is clear: no more lies, no more wars.
March 16, 2004
U.S. Videos, for TV News, Come Under Scrutiny
ROBERT PEAR, The New York Times reports:
WASHINGTON, March 14 — Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.
The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.
The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.
Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia.
Another segment shows a pharmacist talking to an elderly customer. The pharmacist says the new law "helps you better afford your medications," and the customer says, "It sounds like a good idea." Indeed, the pharmacist says, "A very good idea."
The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration describes as a made-for-television "story package."
In one script, the administration suggests that anchors use this language: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details."
The "reporter" then explains the benefits of the new law.
Lawyers from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, discovered the materials last month when they were looking into the use of federal money to pay for certain fliers and advertisements that publicize the Medicare law.
In a report to Congress last week, the lawyers said those fliers and advertisements were legal, despite "notable omissions and other weaknesses." Administration officials said the television news segments were also a legal, effective way to educate beneficiaries.
Gary L. Kepplinger, deputy general counsel of the accounting office, said, "We are actively considering some follow-up work related to the materials we received from the Department of Health and Human Services."
One question is whether the government might mislead viewers by concealing the source of the Medicare videos, which have been broadcast by stations in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other states.
Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity or propaganda purposes" not authorized by Congress. In the past, the General Accounting Office has found that federal agencies violated this restriction when they disseminated editorials and newspaper articles written by the government or its contractors without identifying the source.
Kevin W. Keane, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said there was nothing nefarious about the television materials, which he said had been distributed to stations nationwide. Under federal law, he said, the government is required to inform beneficiaries about changes in Medicare.
"The use of video news releases is a common, routine practice in government and the private sector," Mr. Keane said. "Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do some research on modern public information tools."
But Democrats disagreed. "These materials are even more disturbing than the Medicare flier and advertisements," said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey. "The distribution of these videos is a covert attempt to manipulate the press."
Mr. Lautenberg, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and seven other members of Congress requested the original review by the accounting office.
n the videos and advertisements, the government urges beneficiaries to call a toll-free telephone number, 1-800-MEDICARE. People who call that number can obtain recorded information about prescription drug benefits if they recite the words "Medicare improvement."
Documents from the Medicare agency show why the administration is eager to advertise the benefits of the new law, on radio and television, in newspapers and on the Internet.
"Our consumer research has shown that beneficiaries are confused about the Medicare Modernization Act and uncertain about what it means for them," says one document from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Other documents suggest the scope of the publicity campaign: $12.6 million for advertising this winter, $18.5 million to publicize drug discount cards this spring, about $18.5 million this summer, $30 million for a year of beneficiary education starting this fall and $44 million starting in the fall of 2005.
"Video news releases" have been used for more than a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have done particularly well with them, producing news-style health features about the afflictions their drugs are meant to cure.
The videos became more prominent in the late 1980's, as more and more television stations cut news-gathering budgets and were glad to have packaged news bits to call their own, even if they were prepared by corporations seeking to sell products.
As such, the videos have drawn criticism from some news media ethicists, who consider them to be at odds with journalism's mission to verify independently the claims of corporations and governments.
Government agencies have also produced such videos for years, often on subjects like teenage smoking and the dangers of using steroids. But the Medicare materials wander into more controversial territory.
Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, expressed disbelief that any television stations would present the Medicare videos as real news segments, considering the current debate about the merits of the new law.
"Those to me are just the next thing to fraud," Mr. Kovach said. "It's running a paid advertisement in the heart of a news program."
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.
Published: March 15, 2004
Local officials nearly fall for H2O hoax
VIEJO, Calif. - City officials were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production.
Then they learned, to their chagrin, that dihydrogen monoxide — H2O for short — is the scientific term for water.
"It's embarrassing," said City Manager David J. Norman. "We had a paralegal who did bad research."
The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as "an odorless, tasteless chemical" that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled.
As a result, the City Council of this Orange County suburb had been scheduled to vote next week on a proposed law that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events. Among the reasons given for the ban were that they were made with a substance that could "threaten human health and safety."
The measure has been pulled from the agenda, although Norman said the city may still eventually ban foam cups.
"If you get Styrofoam into the water and it breaks apart, it's virtually impossible to clean up," Norman said.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
March 12, 2004
Spain Mourns 'Our September 11,' Qaeda Link Probed
A Spanish policeman walks past a hole blasted through a train in an explosion at Madrid's Atocha train station after an explosion March 11, 2004. Ten simultaneous explosions killed 182 people on packed Madrid commuter trains in Europe's bloodiest attack for more than 15 years. Officials said 900 people were wounded. (Photo by Andrea Comas/Reuters)
Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters, Reports:
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said on Friday all leads would be pursued to catch the Madrid train attackers as investigators tried to pin down whether Basque separatists or Muslim militants were to blame.
"No line of investigation will be ruled out," Aznar told a news conference minutes before mourning Spaniards marked a five minute silence for the nearly 200 dead.
"Nothing would please me more than to say 'these are the murderers' and to bring them to justice."
Responsibility for Thursday's attacks on packed Madrid commuter trains -- which also wounded 1,430 people -- could be crucial to the outcome of Sunday's general election in Spain which is going ahead despite a halt to campaigning.
Victims from the Madrid bombs included 14 nationals of 10 other countries: three Peruvians, two Hondurans, two Poles, one Chilean, one Cuban, one Ecuadorean, one from Guinea Bissau, one French, one Moroccan and one Colombian, Aznar said. Madrid said its main line of investigation was Basque guerrilla group ETA, but suspicion al Qaeda may have been behind the atrocity sent shock waves around the world.
"The evidence points toward ETA but of course we cannot exclude any other possibility," Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said on Friday.
As condemnation came from Pope John Paul to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, jittery European nations tightened security. Washington said a letter claiming responsibility for al Qaeda and threatening another September 11-style strike could be the "precursor" of another plot against America.
Amid three days of official mourning in Spain, many stopped at midday to express their disgust and solidarity with the victims.
Millions, including Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, were then expected to join evening protests called by Aznar under the slogan "With the Victims, With the Constitution, For the Defeat of Terrorism."
But the slogan chosen for Friday's demonstrations was viewed by some as politically motivated given Basque and Catalan separatists' desire to re-write the constitution to gain independence for their regions -- a hot election issue.
Spanish papers united in their condemnation of "Our September 11" and said establishing blame would now be a critical factor in Sunday's general election.
"The important thing is to ... bring all the evidence to light so that Spaniards can go to the ballot box knowing who is the author of this massacre," El Mundo said in an editorial.
The ruling center-right Popular Party (PP) had campaigned on its hardline stance against ETA. But if the attacks were the work of Islamic militants, it could be viewed as the price for Spain's backing of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
"If the hell unleashed which burned the whole of Madrid on Thursday is the result of Islamic fanaticism, we must look at Spain's role in the Iraq war: an involvement which our citizens rejected, a personal decision by the prime minister beyond the wishes of the majority," commentator Antonio Gala said.
Updated official counts put the total of dead at 198, plus 1,430 wounded. With 60 of the wounded in a serious or very serious state, the death toll was expected to rise.
Spanish ministers were quick to point the finger at ETA on Thursday. But Interior Minister Angel Acebes later said police were not ruling out any line of inquiry after finding a van containing seven detonators and a tape in Arabic at a town near Madrid where the bombs may have been placed on the trains.
Spaniards were shocked and confused by the attacks.
"Not knowing who is responsible just makes it more awful," Madrid resident Juan Ochoa said, discussing events in a bar. "Personally, I don't think al Qaeda could operate here. Or the only way they could do it would be to pay someone else here."
No authentication was available of the letter attributed to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group aligned to al Qaeda.
"We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter, a copy of which was faxed by London-based al-Quds newspaper to Reuters in Dubai.
TEN BLASTS
Investigators say there were 10 blasts. The bombs, in rucksacks, each contained about 22 pounds of explosives.
Witnesses described scenes of horror at the three Madrid stations hit by the blasts. Trains crushed like "cans of tuna" while mobile phones rang eerily from the pockets of the dead.
If ETA is responsible it would be by far the bloodiest attack carried out by the group, which has killed about 850 people since 1968 in its fight for a separate Basque homeland in northwest Spain and southwest France. ETA has been branded a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
Thursday's death toll was the biggest in a guerrilla attack in Europe since December 1988 when a bomb exploded on board a Pan American Boeing 747, bringing it down on the Scottish town of Lockerbie. In all, 270 people were killed.
European shares slipped to fresh five-week lows on Friday while the dollar trimmed previous day's losses on fallout from the Madrid blasts.
(Additional reporting by Marta Calleja, Adrian Croft, Elisabeth O'Leary, Daniel Trotta and Andrew Cawthorne)
March 11, 2004
A Ritual Gone Fatally Wrong Puts Light on Masonic Secrecy
PATRICK HEALY, The New York Times, reports:
PATCHOGUE, N.Y., March 9 — The initiation rituals at the Masonic lodge here had been bathed in secrecy over the years. The climax of Monday night's ceremony was to be a simple prank. A new member of the Fellow Craft Club, a select group within the lodge, would sit in a chair while an older member stood 20 feet away and fired a handgun loaded with blanks.
That ritual went terribly wrong inside Southside Masonic Lodge No. 493, in a basement littered with rat traps, tin cans, a 9-foot-tall guillotine, and a setup designed to mimic walking a plank.
The shooter, a 76-year-old Mason, Albert Eid, was carrying two guns, a .22-caliber handgun with blanks in his left pocket, and a .32-caliber gun with live rounds in his right pocket.
He reached into his right pants pocket, pulled out the wrong gun and shot William James, a 47-year-old fellow Mason, in the face, killing him, the authorities said.
Mr. Eid, a World War II veteran who had a license to carry his own pistol and often did, pleaded not guilty Tuesday afternoon to a charge of second-degree manslaughter and was released on $2,500 bail. He was wearing his blue Masonic jacket during his arraignment in Central Islip.
Suffolk County Police called the shooting an accident, the consequence of one man's confusion. The fatality exposes this secret society, centuries old, to a rare degree of public scrutiny.
Late Monday night, police carried evidence and ritual objects out of the Masons' one-story lodge in Patchogue. All day Tuesday, television reporters and curious neighbors examined the club's bricked-over windows and peered into the front door to glimpse a bulletin board announcing the order's recent charity efforts.
Masonic leaders statewide were quick to disavow the ritual and shooting, saying it was not Masonic custom to shoot guns at other members. Ron Steiner, a spokesman for the New York State Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, which oversees all Masonic lodges in the state, said the social club was not officially tied to the Masonic organization.
"This is so far beyond the concept of reality it's mind-boggling," Mr. Steiner said. "I've never heard of anything like this."
Mystery and suspicion are woven into the history of the Freemasons, who trace their roots to the stone workers' guilds that built medieval Gothic cathedrals. The guilds evolved into secret clubs over the years with secret handshakes and rituals, and symbols like an all-seeing eye, pyramid and compass.
Over the years, the Southside Masonic Lodge members developed their own initiation rituals for the social club in the lodge that set them apart from most other Masonic organizations, members said. No members of the lodge could remember pistols being used in the rituals (they are not allowed in inside Masonic clubhouses), but some described initiations that were part prank, part exercise in trust.
One member, Michael Paquette, said that when he was initiated into the group five years ago, two mouse traps were placed before him, and he was told that one worked, and one was broken, he said. Another member tested the broken trap, then told Mr. Paquette to touch the live one. He did, and discovered that it, too, was a dud.
"It was really harmless things," Mr. Paquette said. "It was just for you to be there and realize you were in good hands, and you didn't have to fear anything."
On Monday night, Mr. James and Mr. Eid were among 10 men who set to performing the club's initiation.
Mr. James, the first to be initiated, sat down in a chair, and two tin cans were placed on a shelf by his head. The idea was for Mr. Eid to fire two blank rounds, and a man standing behind Mr. James would knock the cans down with a stick. And then it happened.
"This is a tragedy," said Mr. Eid's lawyer, James O'Rourke. "He is absolutely beyond grief-stricken. This is a mistake, not a criminal act."
The Southside Masons are mostly middle-aged or retired men who come from middle-class backgrounds. The group once included about 500 members, but membership here and at other Masonic lodges has fallen over the years, and the group now has about 150 members, said Peter Berg, a member. There are about 67,000 Masons across New York State, and their numbers rose slightly last year, for the first time in a decade, Mr. Steiner said.
Orders like the Southside Masons seem more concerned today with Christmas parties and raising money for blood drives and children's charities than ritual.
While Mr. James had only joined the Southside Masons in December, Mr. Eid had been a member for more than 30 years, other members said.
"He's always there," Mr. Paquette said of Mr. Eid. "He put most of his free time into the lodge."
Fewer Masons knew Mr. James, but officials with the Town of Brookhaven, where he worked for the Planning Department, described him as a friendly man who seemed deeply devoted to his family. Mr. James's wife, Susan, said she had no idea what was happening at the Masons' lodge the night he was shot.
"This is so very sudden, and I'm just very upset," she said outside the couple's home in Medford. "To me, it was just a social thing."
Faiza Akhtar contributed reporting for this article.
March 09, 2004
Worst Fears Realized
Spalding Gray performs his monologue, MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT, which covers the events of one day in the life of his family. (October 31, 1999) (NEWSDAY FILE PHOTO / ARI MINTZ)
SEAN GARDINER, Newsday Staff Writer Reports:
A body found Sunday in the East River was identified yesterday as that of Spalding Gray, the actor-writer who disappeared two months ago and is believed to have committed suicide.
Dental records confirmed that the body spotted floating near a pier off North 10th Street in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn belonged to Gray, who had been missing since Jan. 10, according to police and an official from the medical examiner's office.
Sara Vass, a family friend, said the news brought relief and further grief to Gray's wife, Kathleen Russo, and their two sons, Forrest, 11, and Theo, 6.
"On one hand, to have some finality, to know what happened is important to the family," Vass said. "On the other hand, it's just a shattering finality, because there was always hope."
Gone without a trace
Gray, who was 62, went to see the movie "Big Fish" with his sons on Jan. 10. He returned to his SoHo home before telling his wife he was meeting a friend for a drink. He left about 6:30 p.m., leaving behind his anti-depression medicine and his wallet containing money, credit cards and his driver's license.
About 9 p.m., his wife said he called and told Theo, "I'll be home soon and I love you," according to a published report. It was the last time anyone heard from Gray.
The next morning, Gray missed an airplane for a ski trip to Aspen, Colo. When Russo didn't hear from him, she called the friend with whom Gray said he was going to have a drink and found no plans had been made to meet. She then reported her husband missing.
As the days passed without contact from Gray, suicide was suspected.
Fought depression
Best known for monologue performances such as "Gray's Anatomy" and "Swimming to Cambodia," Gray, who was diagnosed as manic-depressive, spoke openly and often of his fascination with suicide.
Vass traced Gray's downturn to injuries he suffered in the summer of 2001 after a veterinarian's van struck a car in which he was a passenger in County Westmeath, Ireland.
Gray suffered a fractured skull, a broken hip and a nearly severed sciatic nerve. The crash left him with a condition known as "dropped foot," in which he wasn't able to lift the toes of his right foot clear of the ground when he walked. It also left him severely depressed, Vass said.
Suicide attempts
At least two suicide attempts followed. On Oct. 15 in Long Island, Gray jumped off the bridge between Sag Harbor and North Haven, where his family owns a home, but was pulled from the water by a police officer and a passerby. Long Island police said Gray had also tried to jump off that bridge in 2002.
Because Gray had talked of committing suicide by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry, the family believes that's the way he chose to end his life, Vass said.
Some police officials who work in Brooklyn suggested that he might have jumped from the Manhattan, Williamsburg or Brooklyn bridges, because of where his body washed up.
Although Gray's facial features were distorted by the time he was pulled from the water, police had a good idea it was him. The body was dressed in black corduroy pants and a red and blue flannel shirt, with a right leg brace, which Gray was wearing when he disappeared.
Without official word yesterday morning, Russo sent her children to school and then waited, Vass said.
About 3:30 p.m. yesterday, Russo heard on television that the city's medical examiner had identified the body as belonging to her husband.
'It's just horrible'
Despite the daylong expectation that, in all likelihood, the body was going to be that of Gray, "the finality and reality of it was just stunning" to his family and friends, Vass said.
"It's just horrible," Vass said. "The whole thing is just dreadful. There's just so much upset in all of this and so much sadness."
Russo, her family and friends huddled in their North Haven home yesterday. Vass said Russo was too upset to talk about her husband.
A woman who answered the door and described herself as a family friend but wouldn't give her name said, "This is a difficult time" then allowed, "At least the children will have some closure."
The woman said the family is planning a small memorial service somewhere on the East End of Long Island in the next few days and will hold a larger service for the public sometime in the next few months.
Staff Writer Mitchell Freedman contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
Suffer Different
(Empty-Handed via BoingBoing)
March 08, 2004
DEA Approves Trial Use Of Ecstasy in Trauma Cases
Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer, Reports:
Capping a 17-year effort by a small but committed group of activists, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed to let a South Carolina physician treat 12 trauma victims with the illegal street drug ecstasy in what will be the first U.S.-approved study of the recreational drug's therapeutic potential.
The DEA's move marks a historic turn for a drug that has long been both venerated and vilified.
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is popular among casual drug users for its reputed capacity to engender feelings of love, trust and compassion. The government classifies it with LSD and heroin as a drug with no known medical use and high potential for abuse.
Although the study's approval is by no means a federal endorsement of uncontrolled use, it will give ecstasy's proponents their first legitimate opportunity to prove the drug can offer medical benefits.
"MDMA opens the doorway for people to feel deep feelings of love and empathy, which is the core of being human," said Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Sarasota, Fla., the nonprofit research and educational organization funding the trauma study. "We should be looking at that and learning from that."
As a result of the DEA action, sometime in the next few weeks the study's first participant -- still to be selected -- will check in for an overnight stay at an outpatient counseling center in the Charleston area. (Investigators have asked that the location not be precisely identified). He or she will take 125 milligrams of 99.87 percent pure 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- probably the highest quality MDMA on Earth -- synthesized by a Purdue University chemist.
Michael Mithoefer, the Charleston psychiatrist who will lead the research, emphasized that ecstasy is by no means a benign drug. Indeed, he said, on occasion it has proved deadly at all-night dance parties, or raves, where it is often consumed.
"The fact that we have good evidence that we can use MDMA safely in a controlled setting does not mean it is safe to take ecstasy at a rave," Mithoefer said.
The goal is to help people with debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder face the pain at the core of their illness, he said, and learn to work with it.
"Because of MDMA's reported ability to decrease levels of fear and defensiveness and increase the sense of trust, we hope that will be a catalyst for the therapeutic process," Mithoefer said.
Advocates have been aiming for such a study since 1986. The Food and Drug Administration gave its blessing in November 2001 after long consideration and analysis of three human safety studies funded by Doblin's group. It was two more years before the study got the required approval of an independent science and ethics board.
The DEA's issuance last week of a Schedule 1 registration, which allows Mithoefer to administer the drug under the specific conditions of the study, was the last hurdle.
From all indications, it was not a decision made lovingly by an agency that has called ecstasy "one of the most significant emerging drug threats facing America's youth." But with all the other federal requirements met, the role of the DEA -- whose responsibility is to prevent "diversions" of the drug -- was limited to documenting that Mithoefer had a big enough safe bolted securely enough to the floor, a qualifying alarm system and a set of records that would ensure careful tracking of every speck of the stuff.
"Whether we agree with the study is not relevant," said Bill Grant, the spokesman for the DEA. "All the qualifications were met."
Even some of ecstasy's leading critics said they could abide by the study if regulators were satisfied.
"The key issue is that all potential subjects be fully informed of the risks," George Ricaurte, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the drug, wrote in an e-mail.
Ecstasy was popular more than 20 years ago as an aid to psychotherapy. Recreational abuse drew it to the attention of the DEA, which in the mid-1980s began regulating it.
A black market emerged, and millions of young ravers and others have since tried the substance, which can induce what enthusiasts describe as up to eight hours of empathic conversation, contemplation and energetic sociality.
Most users report no long-term negative effects, though some speak of fatigue or depression for a few days afterward. There is a heated scientific debate as to whether ecstasy causes significant, long-term damage to parts of the brain.
All experts agree that ecstasy on rare occasions causes a sudden, inexplicable and fatal form of heat exhaustion. That is one reason there will be an emergency room doctor and nurse outside the Charleston-area therapy room -- where each patient will sit and talk for hours with Mithoefer and his wife, psychiatric nurse Annie Mithoefer.
To be chosen for the study, the patients -- all victims of assaults unrelated to combat -- must have moderate to severe post-traumatic stress disorder unresponsive to other drugs and therapies, and will first engage in preliminary therapy sessions with the Mithoefers. Twelve participants will get the drug, and eight will get a placebo. Each will spend that first session talking, listening to music and lying on a couch as needed -- though study rules require that at a certain point each patient must engage in a discussion about the trauma that has left him or her debilitated.
Periodic physical, emotional and neurological checkups will continue for several weeks, followed by a second ecstasy session.
Marcela Ot'alora, who in 1984 -- before ecstasy's use was criminalized -- took it under a therapist's supervision to help her deal with the aftereffects of being raped, lauded the Charleston study's approval.
For years, she had been unable to wait in lines or stand with her back to crowds because of a fear of being attacked, said Ot'alora, who today is a therapist in a western state that she asked not be revealed.
Ecstasy had a profound effect, she said: "I think for the first time in my life I was able to have compassion for myself, and also felt I was strong enough to face something that was frightening without falling apart.
"It's not a miracle drug, by any means," she continued. "But it allows you to go into the trauma and know it is past, and separate it from the present."
She said she has not wanted to take the drug again, even though she still feels less than fully healed.
"It's almost like it showed me the path I needed to take," she said, "and I can do that on my own now."
Tuesday, March 2, 2004; Page A02
March 04, 2004
Some Like It Hot
If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio, and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation - until now.
The Hollywood film industry was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and directors migrated from the East Coast to California in the early 20th century in part to escape controls that film patents granted the inventor Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through the Motion Pictures Patents Company, a monopoly "trust" based on Edison's creative property and formed to vigorously protect his patent rights.
Marilyn photo from Kobal Collection, pirate photo from Corbis
California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers like Fox and Paramount could move there and, without fear of the law, pirate his inventions. Hollywood grew quickly, and enforcement of federal law eventually spread west. But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative property.
Meanwhile, the record industry grew out of another kind of piracy. At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for reproducing music (Edison the phonograph; Fourneaux the player piano), the law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies and public performances of their music. Thus, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit, "Happy Mose," the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy of the score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform it publicly.
But what if I wanted to record "Happy Mose" using Edison's phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano Here the law stumbled. If I simply sang the piece into a recording device in my home, it wasn't clear that I owed the composer anything. And more important, it wasn't clear whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those recordings. Because of this gap in the law, I could effectively use someone else's song without paying the composer anything. The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to pirate.
In 1909, Congress closed the gap in favor of the composer and the recording artist, amending copyright law to make sure that composers would be paid for "mechanical reproductions" of their music. But rather than simply granting the composer complete control over the right to make such reproductions, Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set by Congress, after the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law. So, by limiting musicians' rights - by partially pirating their creative work - record producers and the public benefit.
A similar story can be told about radio. When a station plays a composer's work on the air, that constitutes a "public performance." Copyright law gives the composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money.
But when the station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy of the composer's work. The station is also performing a copy of the recording artist's work. It's one thing to air a recording of "Happy Birthday" by the local children's choir; it's quite another to air a recording of it by the Rolling Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the composition played on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly consistent, the station would have to pay the artist for his work, just as it pays the composer.
But it doesn't. This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. You own the exclusive right to authorize public performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, she has to get your permission.
Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under today's law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The public performance of her recording is not a "protected" right. The radio station thus gets to pirate the value of Madonna's work without paying her a dime.
No doubt, one might argue, the promotion artists get is worth more than the performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if that's the case, this is a choice that the law ordinarily gives to the creator. Instead, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for nothing.
Cable TV, too: When entrepreneurs first started installing cable in 1948, most refused to pay the networks for the content that they hijacked and delivered to their customers - even though they were basically selling access to otherwise free television broadcasts. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more egregiously than anything Napster ever did - Napster never charged for the content it enabled others to give away.
Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. As then Screen Actors Guild president Charlton Heston put it, the cable outfits were "free-riders" who were "depriving actors of compensation."
Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing. The debate shifted to Congress, where almost 30 years later it resolved the question in the same way it had dealt with phonographs and player pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they broadcast, but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright owner. Instead, lawmakers set the price so that the broadcasters couldn't veto the emerging technologies of cable. The companies thus built their empire in part upon a piracy of the value created by broadcasters' content.
As the history of film, music, radio, and cable TV suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all piracy is. Or at least, not in the sense that the term is increasingly being used today. Many kinds of piracy are useful and productive, either to create new content or foster new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition, nor any tradition, has ever banned all piracy.
This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy concern - peer-to-peer file-sharing. But it does mean that we need to understand the harm in P2P sharing a bit more before we condemn it to the gallows.
Like the original Hollywood, P2P sharing seeks to escape an overly controlling industry. And like the original recording and radio industries, it is simply exploiting a new way of distributing content. But unlike cable TV, no one is selling the content that gets shared on P2P services. This difference distinguishes P2P sharing. We should find a way to protect artists while permitting this sharing to survive.
Much of the "piracy" that file-sharing enables is plainly legal and good. It provides access to content that is technically still under copyright but that is no longer commercially available - in the case of music, some 4 million tracks. More important, P2P networks enable sharing of content that copyright owners want shared, as well as work already in the public domain. This clearly benefits authors and society.
Moreover, much of the sharing - which is referred to by many as piracy - is motivated by a new way of spreading content made possible by changes in the technology of distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, radio, the music industry, and cable TV, the question we should be asking about file-sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists.
The question is one of balance, weighing the protection of the law against the strong public interest in continued innovation. The law should seek that balance, and that balance will be found only with time.
Excerpted from Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, copyright © by Lawrence Lessig, to be published in March by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
'War' of the worms escalates
Will Knight, New Scientist, reports:
Messages buried in the code of three current computer worms may be evidence of a simmering feud between rival worm writers each determined to infect as many PCs as possible.
But experts note that the messages could just as easily be a smokescreen designed to throw the authorities off the scent.
The three most recent variants of the Netsky worm are designed to remove two rival worms, Bagle and MyDoom, from infected computers.
The latest version of the Bagle worm, known as Bagle J, contains abusive messages aimed at the author of Netsky. Bagle J contains the missive: Hey, NetSky, [expletives removed], don't ruine our business (sic), wanna start a war.
And analysis carried out by the Finnish anti-virus company F-Secure, also suggests that the latest version of MyDoom, known as MyDoom H, is not only immune to removal by Netsky, but also contains a challenge to meet with the creator of Bagle.
"It contains encrypted Global Positioning System coordinates," says Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research at F-Secure.
Underground network
But Hypponen adds that the whole affair could turn out to be an elaborate hoax screen. "It might just be an exercise to use up the resources of anti-virus companies," he told New Scientist.
New variants of these worms have appeared with unusual frequency in recent days. Experts believe the programmers behind them are modifying their creations to stay ahead of anti-virus software updates designed to catch the latest strains.
Computers that have already been infected may play a role in the release of each new variant.
"We believe both authors may have access to an underground network consisting of thousands of compromised computers owned by innocent users," says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with the UK anti-virus firm Sophos. These "are being exploited to launch each new version of their worms," he adds.
Fortunately, none of these virus variants have had a very wide impact, says Natasha Staley, an information security analyst with UK email filtering company MessageLabs. But she adds that "the side effect is that they are hurting innocent user's computers".
Computer worms have been increasingly linked to email spam and even extortion in recent months. Some worms can create spam gateways on a victim's computers, while others may install tools that can be used to remotely knock a web site off line. A number of gambling sites been ordered to pay money or have their business disrupted by this type of attack.
Viet iPod Remix
This is betamale's disturbing and good remix of the iPod ads and the classic Vietnam war-atrocity photo. (via BoingBoing)
Haiti: Kidnap Claim
US officials are dismissing allegations that US troops forced Jean-Bertrand Aristide to leave Haiti.
Secretary of State Colin Powell says the claim is absurd. White House spokesman Scott McClellan calls it "nonsense." He says Aristide left on his own free will -- and that US troops were there to protect him.
But Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California says she got a phone call today from Aristide and his wife, who are now in the Central African Republic. She tells CNN that the Aristides claim US officials forced them to get on a plane -- and that they now feel as if they're being held as prisoners.
African-American activist Randall Robinson says he got a similar call from Aristide -- who said he'd been ousted in a coup and abducted by US soldiers.
The government of the Central African Republic today released a video showing Aristide getting off a plane. There were no troops present -- and Aristide looked tired, but not scared.
Lecturer Quits to Become Plumber
David Ward and Lucy Ward, UK Guardian, report:
As universities began a week of strikes over pay yesterday, a molecular biologist announced that he was quitting his lab for a new career as a plumber.
The Association of University Teachers, the lecturers' union, claims he is not alone: a second academic is throwing up her job to train greyhounds and a third is moving to Canada with no job arranged.
Karl Gensberg, a post-doctoral researcher who has had short-term contracts at the University of Birmingham, will begin his new career in the summer after completing a plumbing course at Sutton Coldfield College.
"I was chatting to the plumber who came to fit my new boiler," he said. "He remarked that, because I had a PhD, I must be earning lots of money. I had my pay slip on me and when I showed it to him, he said, 'I earn twice that'." Dr Gensberg, 41, has had a 13-year academic career and earns £23,000 a year.
"I expect when I am qualified as a plumber I will at first be earning pretty much what I am now," he added. "But I won't have to figure out how to find funding nor will I have to face a wall of bureaucracy."
His present contract ends in April and Dr Gensberg says the university has emailed him to ask if he would return to the campus to do plumbing work.
"By this time, I was hoping I would have had a permanent contract. Without that, you cannot do your own research because it is almost impossible to raise funding." If he could have found research money, Dr Gensberg would have explored his interest in electro-magnetic fields and their effects on human cells.
Wendy Richards, a lecturer in industrial relations who earns about £34,000 a year, is quitting the University of Keele after 16 years for a new life in Canada. "I have had enough of a 50-hour week and weekend working. My frustration has been building up over the last three or four years because the workload has got so much heavier. I like running my course but what I hate is the bureaucracy."
An academic working in the social science department of a northern university said she intended to rear racing greyhounds. "They say the only way to make a fortune in greyhound breeding is to start with a fortune. But the only way to make a fortune as an academic is to leave." She added that she could end up earning a vice-chancellor's salary.
"Some of our members are so desperate to escape that they are giving up higher education and going to work in fields which are completely unrelated and which do not have the same social standing," said an AUT spokesman.
The union forecast that leading universities would be "crippled" by the strikes over pay and claimed that university life in Wales had "ground to a halt" on the first day of action yesterday.
On Wednesday, the AUT will join the National Union of Students, which is protesting against planned top-up fees, to attempt to empty lecture halls and in effect shut down higher education institutions. The unions say their concerns are linked because fees and pay reforms both lead to the "marketisation" of higher education.
University employers said strike action taken by lecturers would be patchy. Fifty-three of the 166 higher education institutions had not been balloted by the AUT, while in another 40 membership of the union was too small for a strike to create a big impact, the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association said.