Johann Hari: The IMF itself should be on trial

Dawn: The price of denial

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Feds: WikiLeaks Associates Have ‘No Right’ To Know About Demands For Their Records

Illustration: 'Inglourious Nerds' by @exiledsurfer

As the war in Libya drags on, the United States faces a familiar predicament: Why, despite possessing overwhelming military superiority over any foe, does it have such a hard time using the threat of force to push much weaker dictators around?
This isn't a new problem. During the 1990s, the United States and its allies found it much harder than expected to convince Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to stop repressing opposition groups and open suspected weapons facilities to inspectors, to protect civilians in Bosnia, to force Somali warlords to stop pillaging humanitarian relief efforts, and to compel Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to end his violent ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo.
A decade ago, we wrote a book pondering this very puzzle. The short answer was that political constraints often bind the United States and its coalition partners much more tightly than their adversaries, and in ways that offset advantages in raw military power. Those painfully learned lessons apply more than ever in Libya today and help explain why Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi isn't flinching against the world's most sophisticated military forces -- despite his near-complete international isolation.
NATO forces and their Libyan rebel allies have scored some notable successes over Qaddafi. Eight high-ranking Libyan officers, including five generals, defected to Italy this week. Rebel forces drove Qaddafi's troops back from Misrata last month, ending the suffocating siege of the strategically located city. But despite these advances, neither side appears poised to break out of the months-long military stalemate in western Libya.
NATO is not attempting to bring about a complete military defeat of Qaddafi, which would require a much larger military effort, but is instead trying to impose sufficient costs that his regime either surrenders or collapses. Airstrikes targeting the leadership compound in Tripoli, while ostensibly designed to degrade Libyan command-and-control capabilities, are also likely intended to hit Qaddafi and key regime figures. At the same time, international financial and military assistance to the ragtag rebel forces is intended to bolster the internal revolt against his regime. But targeting elusive (or at times just well-bunkered) regime leaders from the air is hard, and, so far, Qaddafi is showing resilience and resolve -- much more than many advocates of intervention expected...

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Daniel Byman & Matthew Waxman @'FP'

Cyber war: Google, China in fresh spat over email hacking

How the Brain Got Its Buttocks

♪♫ Einstürzende Neubauten - Yu Gung/Ein Stuhl/Der Kuss [fragment] (Live @ Moers 1990)

(For ErikL! Down boy down...XXX)

You Vote What You Eat: How Liberals and Conservatives Eat Differently

Heart in the right space

Sun Ra performs on stage with the Sun Ra Arkestra at Meervaart in Amsterdam in 1984. Photo: Frans Schelleke

There is arguably only one band in the world that has, throughout more than five decades, touched on the entire musical history of jazz, from ragtime to swing, to hard bop and free jazz and beyond - way beyond, in fact, to outer space. That band is the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, formed and led by the late Sun Ra and continued today under the direction of original member Marshall Allen, some 53 years after he first joined.

In one of the highlights of this year's Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the Sun Ra Arkestra will play in Australia for the first time.

Sun Ra died - or ascended back to Saturn, from where he proclaimed he hailed - in 1993 but his dedicated band, which has seen dozens of members through the decades, have kept his unique musical vision alive, first under bandleader saxophonist John Gilmore and then, when Gilmore died in 1995, under Allen.

Where most musicians of Allen's vintage swap the touring life for recording, Allen, who turned 87 last week, says the Arkestra these days prefer live gigs.

''I'm still hanging in there,'' Allen says by phone from Philadelphia two days before his birthday, which he celebrated with a gig in New York.

''I'm not playing to show off or for money - I never made much of that - I'm playing for my wellbeing,'' he says, adding that he's excited to finally make it to Australia.

''I met a lot of soldiers from Australia when I was in the war. We used to say we'd go there but it never did pan out that way. It's wonderful we'll be there at last.''

The Arkestra are as famed for their extraordinary, innovative music - pioneering the use of electric bass, electronic keyboards, modal music and free-form improvisation - as much as for Sun Ra's all-encompassing cosmic mysticism.

The original afrofuturist, years before the handle existed, Ra - born Herman Blount, a name he often denied ever having - claimed he was from an ''angel race'' from Saturn. He created his own philosophy mixing black nationalism, Egyptology and science fiction, among other mystical beliefs, claiming space travel and music were tools for ''evolution into a new consciousness and tuning into holy vibrations''...

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Kylie Northover @'The Age'

Copyright Office says illegal streaming should be a felony

The global food crisis: ABCD of food – how the multinationals dominate trade

HA! MI6 attacks al-Qaeda in 'Operation Cupcake'

The cyber-warfare operation was launched by MI6 and GCHQ in an attempt to disrupt efforts by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular to recruit “lone-wolf” terrorists with a new English-language magazine, the Daily Telegraph understands.

When followers tried to download the 67-page colour magazine, instead of instructions about how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef” they were greeted with garbled computer code.

The code, which had been inserted into the original magazine by the British intelligence hackers, was actually a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

Written by Dulcy Israel and produced by Main Street Cupcakes in Hudson, Ohio, it said “the little cupcake is big again” adding: “Self-contained and satisfying, it summons memories of childhood even as it's updated for today’s sweet-toothed hipsters.”

It included a recipe for the Mojito Cupcake – “made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream”- and the Rocky Road Cupcake – “warning: sugar rush ahead!”

By contrast, the original magazine featured a recipe showing how to make a lethal pipe bomb using sugar, match heads and a miniature lightbulb, attached to a timer.
The cyber attack also removed articles by Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and a piece called “What to expect in Jihad.”
British and US intelligence planned separate attacks after learning that the magazine was about to be issued in June last year.
They have both developed a variety of cyber-weapons such as computer viruses, to use against both enemy states and terrorists.
A Pentagon operation, backed by Gen Keith Alexander, the head of US Cyber Command, was blocked by the CIA which argued that it would expose sources and methods and disrupt an important source of intelligence, according to a report in America.
However the Daily Telegraph understands an operation was launched from Britain instead.
Al-Qaeda was able to reissue the magazine two weeks later and has gone on to produce four further editions but one source said British intelligence was continuing to target online outlets publishing the magazine because it is viewed as such a powerful propaganda tool.
The magazine is produced by the radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of AQAP who has lived in Britain and the US, and his associate Samir Khan from North Carolina.
Both men who are thought to be in Yemen, have associated with radicals connected to Rajib Karim, a British resident jailed for 30 years in March for plotting to smuggle a bomb onto a trans-Atlantic aircraft.
At the time Inspire was launched, US government officials said “the packaging of this magazine may be slick, but the contents are as vile as the authors.”
Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst said it was “clearly intended for the aspiring jihadist in the US or UK who may be the next Fort Hood murderer or Times Square bomber.”
In recent days AQAP fighters have capitalised on chaos in Yemen, as the country teeters on the brink of civil war.
Tribal forces marching towards the capital, Sana'a, clashed with troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh for a third day running yesterday.
Duncan Gardham @'The Telegraph'

Forest Swords

Kaibasa Claps

Trust Your Blood

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The ‘Fjree Feather' EP consists of remastered early demo material released on limited edition white vinyl 12" via London label No Pain In Pop. It was previously only available on a self released CDR prior to the release of 2010's universally acclaimed 'Dagger Paths' EP.
Forest Swords is the work of the Wirral Penisula’s Matthew Barnes. Mixing dubby grooves with Ennio Morricone style guitar lines and chasmic percussion the project is something truly organic, managing to sound like a mix of Mogwai's more gauzy soundscapes and Burial's sample strewn claustrophobia.
All money raised from the release will be donated to the Red Cross's tsunami recovery efforts in Japan. The Red Cross is currently helping over 280,000 people in the country move from shelters into temporary pre-fabricated housing, providing them with domestic items and the means to return to a normal life following March's disaster.