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Saturday, 27 November 2010
wikileaks UK Government has issued a "D-notice" warning to all UK news editors, asking to be briefed on upcoming WikiLeaks stories.
Friday, 26 November 2010
North Korean shelling heard near Yeonpyeong
South Korea reported sounds of artillery fire emanating from North Korea today, but said it appeared to be routine training. The news came hours after Pyongyang warned that the South's joint drill with the US was pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.
Seoul-based broadcaster YTN said the shells appeared to have landed within the North, away from the disputed maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea.
The firing came days after four people on a nearby island were killed in a Northern artillery attack. Pyongyang said that was a response to shelling by the South, which was conducting a live-fire drill exercise.
Seoul said its troops did not fire towards the North. But Pyongyang's foreign ministry said yesterday that shells were "bound to drop inside [the North's] territorial waters". It does not accept the Yellow Sea border, drawn unilaterally by the US at the end of the Korean war.
The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the few dozen residents who remain on Yeonpyeong fled to emergency shelters as they heard the distant explosions this afternoon.
Earlier the North had threatened "a shower of fire" in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency, warning: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again war exercises targeted against the [North]."
It added that it was "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold" and said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday.
Pyongyang often issues bellicose warnings when military manoeuvres are due in the area.
The US has dispatched an aircraft carrier group led by the USS George Washington to take part in training with the South Korean navy from Sunday. The exercises were planned before this week's attack but had been postponed with the US citing scheduling conflicts.
Beijing has expressed concern about the exercises in the Yellow Sea, which lies between Korea and China. But its protests were far more muted than the complaints which saw off plans for drills there earlier this year.
The US is pressing China to restrain its ally and a White House official said Barack Obama is likely to discuss the Korean situation with President Hu Jintao within days.
Domestic criticism of Seoul's response to the bombardment has continued despite the defence minister's resignation yesterday.
Hundreds of South Korean veterans demonstrated in the border town of Paju today, accusing the government of being too weak.
"The lazy government's policies towards North Korea are too soft," said Kim Byeong-su, the president of the association of ex-marines.
"It needs to take revenge on a bunch of mad dogs. We need to show them South Korea is not to be played with."
Tania Branigan @'The Guardian'
Disparity and consequences
Technology – particularly the Internet – was hailed as “the great leveler” in the early days, and indeed it many ways it has been.
But I was struck by a comment on someone’s post today, that both of his grandchildren – 4½ and 7½ – were getting iPads in their xmas stockings. “Really?” I thought. Those things are not cheap, and I don’t believe childproof.
But what struck me wasn’t the obvious display of disposable income (shocking to my thoroughly calvinist upbringing lol – still working on that), but that those kids are being handed – handed- the future keys to success: technical aptitude. And what that means is increasingly society will be delineated by the “haves” and “have nots”, since the kids in the “haves” group will have such a clear, relevant advantage.
Now I’m not a social crusader. I get that “life isn’t fair” and that there have always been inequities between the rich and poor, with all the associated privileges, be it access to better food, medicine, investment opportunities, recreation, etc. But it just seems that there’s never been something with quite as much power to create so much disparity. The kids with early access and education using it will thrive in the future, the rest will not.
We need to make sure that the kids in the “have not” group have at least a chance of success in the future where technical savvy is a requirement. Moral obligations aside (I’m not a fan of using morals to make an argument), but from a pragmatic perspective: among the ranks of those underprivileged kids could be the next brilliant programmer, leader, designer who makes life better for us all.
I’m sure all of this has been dicussed and anticipated many times, one of the results being the “One laptop per child” program. But we need to ensure that in the US as well, we provide a system that supports the training and development tools to all the kids in our country. How else are we as a nation going to stay competitive on a global basis?
(BIG thanx to Linda, who explores "the intersection between technology, business strategy, and psychology" at her wonderful blog.
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Richard Lloyd's apres Thanksgiving smoke!
Richard enjoys a little Tobacco, after dinner with the Patterson's. No photoshop here baby, just Richard doing what he does best -- stuff nobody else would dare to...(Unless you an an Ononomou Indian from Venezuela)
Via Facebook
Is This Really the End for Ahmadinejad?
Casual Iran observers tend to portray the country's most prominent political division as that between fundamentalist hard-liners and secular moderates. In reality, however, the struggle for Iran's future is a three-way fight waged by the different branches of conservatives that control the parliament, the presidency, and the theocracy. The Green Movement may have stalled, but the parliamentary opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has only grown stronger and more assertive over the past year -- culminating in a recent push to charge the president with abuses of power warranting impeachment. Those efforts are coming to a halt under orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who fears that the parliament's attempt to assert itself against the president will also be at the expense of his own power base, the country's conservative mullahs.
In fact, this isn't the first round of infighting among Iran's leaders. In July 2009, legislators warned Ahmadinejad that they would seek to oust him as the chief executive if he continued acting in an autocratic manner. Ahmadinejad responded by claiming the executive branch is the most important one of the government.
Ahmadinejad has also clashed with parliamentarians over his prerogative to influence the activities of the Central Bank. As financial hardships mount on common Iranians, in part due to mismanagement and in part from international sanctions, their elected representatives are blaming the president and his bureaucrats for the economy's woes.
It's a naked power struggle that has cloaked itself in ideology. Ahmadinejad and his cohorts in the executive branch of Iran's government increasingly reference secular Iranian nationalism. They recently celebrated an exhibition honoring Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire over 2,500 years ago; they have also been known to castigate influential mullahs for diminishing Iran's greatness, going so far as to encourage the separation of religion from the government. Meanwhile parliament speaker Ali Larijani and his legislative supporters present themselves as adherents to the fundamentalist traditions of Shiite Islam and as true believers in the velayat-e faqih, Iran's system of governance by Muslim jurists.
But at its root, the infighting is motivated by differences over pragmatic political strategy. At a time of economic stagnation and international isolation, Iran's power players are all competing to put their stamp on national crisis management...
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Jamsheed K Choksy @'FP'
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