Russian Court Throws Out Microsoft Piracy Case

A Russian court has dismissed a criminal case against a village school teacher accused of using pirated Microsoft software.

Aleksandr Ponosov, the headmaster at a school in the Perm region, went on trial after prosecutors accused him of violating Microsoft's intellectual property rights. Radio Free Europe

Growing concern about Russia leads to new defence thinking in Sweden

..."The strategic map has changed. We must now analyse what resources are needed here at home, if tension in the north of Europe were to grow", said Colonel Stefan Gustafsson in a recent interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
As Gustafsson sees it, Russia’s armed forces have passed their nadir, and Russia is now able to invest more in its military. According to Gustafsson, Russia also has new energy interests to protect in the Barents Sea, and in the Baltic Sea gas pipeline, which is a cause for concern in Sweden.
... Foreign Minister Carl Bildt noted in a foreign policy speech made on behalf of the government that development in Russia has taken a few backward steps. He said that the political system and the media atmosphere are not as free as before, human rights continue to be violated in Chechnya, and that the unsolved murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the circumstances surrounding the death of Aleksandr Litvinenko "cast dark shadows".
Bildt did not want to take an immediate stand on the new assessments from the military. "I have only read what the newspapers have written. I need to examine the situation better", Bildt said to journalists. HELSINGIN SANOMAT

Peterson/The Sun/Vancouver, Canada/CartoonArts International

A countdown to confrontation

THE streets of Iran are festooned this week with revolutionary bunting. Black and green banners commemorating the martyrdom of the third Shia imam, Hussein, still flutter from lamp-posts, even though the mournful Ashura rites of late January are over. They now hang beside flags looking forward to February 11th, when Iranians mark the anniversary of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Such celebrations usually go unnoticed in America. But not this time. The two countries are moving slowly towards confrontation, both over Iraq—where Iran is meddling—and over Iran's nuclear programme. Its provocative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (above right), has hinted that February's celebrations will include “good news” about the progress of nuclear work. Iran says it is fiddling with uranium and plutonium to produce more electricity. But America and many other countries suspect it is building a bomb.

...Inside Iran a heated debate is now under way over how to respond to its growing isolation and the prospect of more sanctions to come. There are signs of rising popular discontent with Mr Ahmadinejad's firebrand rhetoric and his capricious management of the economy—as well as worries about sanctions, and how much the nuclear programme will cost Iran. More pragmatic politicians, such as Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, would prefer to re-open negotiations with the West to avoid open confrontation.

When Mr Ahmadinejad and his allies did badly in recent local elections, criticism came into the open. Last week, for the first time, a newspaper editorial even argued the case for suspending nuclear work, as the UN has demanded. Mr Ahmadinejad's wings have been clipped a little. But there is no sign yet that Iran's leaders will reconsider their nuclear ambitions. Economist

Suffer the children?

JUDGING by the loud howls of concern this week, the lot of children in Britain and America is a rather terrible one. On Wednesday February 14th Unicef published a report comparing the well-being of young people in 21 rich countries, and concluded that British and American youths endure the worst quality of life of any. In contrast, North European children, especially the Nordics, apparently have a lovely time. Cue hand-wringing from a lot of worried Anglo-American parents.
...there is much in the report that is worth noting. The authors drew on 40 different indicators of child welfare, divided into six general categories, and ranked the countries accordingly. Anglo-Americans with many single-parent families, greater household-income inequality and worse social habits consistently scored badly on almost every measure. What is particularly instructive, however, are the clues to why this is the case. ,a href=" Economist

The myth of Finnish incorruptibility

An often-repeated quotation believed to date back to the 1970s, and attributed to Nokia director Harry Mildh, states that "there is no person so insignificant as to not be worth bribing."
... For years, Finland has been at the top of the list maintained by Transparency International of the world's least corrupt countries. So we are incorruptible.
However, the problem with these comparisons is that corruption manifests itself in so many forms. The TI report mainly tells us that the Finnish civil service is no longer bribe-driven.
... The bribery scandal that emerged in Siemens not long ago was a rude awakening to many. Former and present employees of the prestigious German electronics manufacturer have spoken in police interrogations of systematic transfers of funds to bribe accounts - a practice that has continued for years. This was used to grease the palms of buyers of telecommunications networks - especially in developing countries.
Examples can be found closer to home as well. In one case that was made public, Wärtsilä and Instrumentarium have at the very least turned a blind eye to obvious bribery in their foreign dealings. HELSINGIN SANOMAT

Pierre Loti at the height of controversy

In much of Istanbul, place names come and place names go. But when the name change proposes replacing “Pierre Loti,” the famous French poet who etched Istanbul into the minds of generations of Europeans, well, that means controversy.

“Let Pierre Loti's name may become Eyüp Sultan,” read the headline in Tuesday's mass daily Vatan, telling the story of a name change that quickly migrated to television news reports. The name change has divided locals who live or work around the historic hilltop site and even pitted the mayor of Istanbul's greater municipality against the mayor of the smaller sub-municipality who ordered the change. Turkish Daily News

FBI loose 160 laptop computers and have 160 missing weapons The FBI lost 160 laptop computers in less than four years, including at least 10 that contained highly sensitive classified information and one that held "personal identifying information on FBI personnel," according to a new report released today.

The bureau, which has struggled for years to get a handle on sloppy inventory procedures, also reported 160 missing weapons during the same time period, from February 2002 to September 2005, according to the report by the Justice Department inspector general's office.

In addition to the 10 or more laptops that were confirmed to contain classified information, the FBI could not say whether another 51 computers might also contain secret data, the report said. Seven were assigned to the counterintelligence or counterterrorism divisions, which routinely handle classified information. Washington Post

How the US is doing Iran's killing in Iraq

New evidence is emerging on the ground of an Iranian hand in growing violence within Iraq, but not necessarily as the US claims Tehran is involved, that is, by providing arms to Shi'ite Muslim militants.

The massacre in Najaf last month indicates that Iran could be working through the Iraqi government, local leaders in Najaf say. The killing of 263 people in Najaf by Iraqi and US forces on January 29 provoked outrage and vows of revenge among residents in and around the sacred Shi'ite city in the south.
.... most people in the area believe the US military was told by Iraqi security forces loyal to the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad that "terrorists" or the "messianic cult" were attacking Najaf. They say the misinformation was intended to mislead occupation forces into attacking the tribe.

Many Shi'ites in the southern parts of the country and in Baghdad now say they had been fooled earlier by US promises to help them, but that the Najaf massacre has dramatically changed their views. Asia Times

Return of Somalia's Warlords "This has blown up in our face, frankly." This blunt assessment by John Prendergast—a former adviser to the National Security Council and the State Department who is currently working for the International Crisis Group—wasn't about the January bombing of villages in southern Somalia by the United States. Prendergast was speaking some eight months ago about the clandestine American project of funding the warlords to try to quell the rise of radical Islamist forces in the northeastern African country.

He told the June 8, 2006, New York Times that through the C.I.A.'s program of helping to fund weapons for Somali warlords the United States had "strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were most worried about"—the I.C.U.

Since the 22-year dictatorship of Mohamed Said Barre was ended in 1991, Somalia has been a country without a state. The transitional government, formed in late 2004, is the 14th attempt to create a government since the Barre regime collapsed. Throughout the period after Barre's fall, factions of the former national army have formed into rival warlord-controlled militias. The warlords split the capital into fiefdoms and have waged bloody battles for control of the country.

Officially, Washington denies funding the warlords, although aid workers with the Red Cross and other organizations in Mogadishu told the June 5, 2006, Newsweek that they had seen "many Americans with thick necks and short haircuts moving around carrying big suitcases." Worldpress Org

Korea nuclear talks 'make progress' ...South Korea's envoy to the negotiations, Chun Yung-woo, said: "We have confirmed that there is a consensus among the countries that there must be an agreement on the early steps on implementing the September 19 joint statement at this round [of negotiations]."

He was referring to the North's agreement with the five other countries in September 2005, so far not implemented, to stop its nuclear weapons programme in return for economic and security concessions.

Christopher Hill, the US chief delegate, said the six parties were "coalescing around some of the themes" that would be part of an initial agreement, and also said China may start circulating something "either later tonight or tomorrow morning".

"We hope we can achieve some sort of joint statement," he said. Aljazeera

The caricatures of Mahomet carry out “Charlie Hebdo” in front of justice The lawsuit of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo opens, Wednesday February 7 in front of the correctional court of Paris. The newspaper and its director of the publication, Philippe Valley, are continued by the Union of the Islamic organizations of France (UOIF) and the Large Mosque of Paris (GMP) to have published caricatures of Mahomet in February 2006. The weekly magazine wanted to thus answer the vagueness of violent demonstrations which had burst, at the end of 2005, in the Moslem world after the publication of drawings discussed in the Danish press, of the monk having judged these drawings blasphématoires or racists. Among the three drawings blamed, two had already been published in Denmark in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September 2005. Third is signed of the French caricaturist Cabu. Le Monde

Abbas: Dig near Al-Aqsa Mosque likely to endanger peace efforts Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday said that Israeli excavation works near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem were likely to endanger regional peace efforts, Israel Radio reported.

Abbas added that the excavations demonstrated Israel's intentions to destroy holy Islamic sites, according to the radio.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday said the excavation has led to a dangerous rise in Middle East tensions and could derail the revival of Arab-Israeli peace talks.
... Jerusalem area Archaeologist Yuval Baruch stated that there is no intention to dig underneath the Temple Mount or to cause any damage to the Western Wall of the Mount. A source at the Israel Antiquities Authority stated today that "The incitement occurring in the Muslim world over the excavations is merely an attempt to twist a non-political act into something religious and divisive."

"The excavations are being carried out according to procedure by a team of professional archaeologists and experts," the source added.

In recent weeks, militant Islamic leaders have warned that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is under threat from the excavation. They have urged followers to mobilize to block Israeli work near the compound. Haaretz

Palestinians arrive for Mecca talks Palestinian leaders have arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks aimed at ending months of factional fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah.

However as they convened in Jeddah ahead of the talks on Tuesday a commander from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was shot dead in Gaza City.
Meanwhile Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said on Tuesday that he was to hold trilateral talks with Condoleeza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on February 19.
Saudi King Abdullah met separately with Abbas, head of the Fatah movement and Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas leader, in Jeddah before open-ended discussions aimed at ending the power struggle in Gaza and the West Bank begin in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday. Aljazeera

Bush's Iran madness You wouldn't think that the masterminds who dreamed up the Iraq war could possibly match that grand plan, but they have. The ignorant ideologues who brought us Iraq have learned nothing. They are still reading from the same delusional neoconservative script. So, with Iraq a bloody nightmare, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process dead, Lebanon and Gaza on the brink of civil war, the entire Middle East dangerously unstable, and America's standing in the Arab/Muslim world at an all-time low, the Bush administration geniuses have come up with another grand plan: demonize Iran, push it to the brink of war, strong-arm U.S. allies into confronting it, and whip up sectarian hatred in the region.

In his State of the Union address, Bush singled out Iran as a hostile troublemaker in Iraq and promised to attack its "networks," which U.S. officials have claimed are supplying advanced weaponry to Shia militias who kill American soldiers. He then threatened to "kill or capture" any Iranian intelligence agents found in Iraq. American aircraft carriers have moved menacingly into the Gulf. U.S. troops seized six Iranian officials in northern Iraq, accusing them of spying. U.S. officials darkly conjectured that Iran was responsible for the abduction and killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala. At the same time, the Bush administration is twisting the arms of its "moderate" Sunni allies to take a hard line against Iran.

Some see this gambit as representing a welcome return to coldblooded, "Great Game" realism after the wishful thinking that led to the Iraq debacle. But this is a superficial misreading. Bush's Iran ploy reeks of desperation and shortsightedness; it is no more "realistic" than his Iraq strategy. It may briefly postpone the day of reckoning by diverting Americans' attention and providing a temporary bad guy, one Bush is sure to blame when his Iraq venture completely falls apart. But it flies in the face of a historical shift, the rise of Shia and Iranian power, that Bush himself rashly set in motion, and cannot now be undone. It could lead to a shooting war, which would be utterly disastrous for U.S. interests and would set back the cause of reform in Iran by years. And by further exacerbating sectarian and ethnic tensions in the Middle East while denying, in time-honored neocon fashion, that there are actual causes for what Bush simplistically labels "extremism," it is likely to further destabilize an already-chaotic region -- and empower al-Qaida, which thrives on hatred and chaos. Salon

Deal ends Beatles' Apple battle Technology giant Apple has reached a deal with the Beatles to end the dispute over the use of the Apple name. Apple Inc will now take full control of the Apple brand and license certain trademarks back to the Beatles' record company Apple Corps for continued use.

The two companies have been wrangling over the use of the Apple name and logo for more than 25 years. The legal battle over the trademark will now end.




Apple Inc boss Steve Jobs said the court dispute had been "painful".

The Beatles' songs are still not available on any legal download service, but this truce could pave the way for their anticipated appearance on the iTunes download store. BBC News

Gaza abductions on eve of talks A series of tit-for-tat kidnappings of Hamas and Fatah members have taken place ahead of crucial talks due to be held between Fatah and Hamas in Mecca on Tuesday.

Gunmen in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun have stormed the headquarters of Force 17, which is loyal to Fatah, and abducted six members.
Fatah officials blamed Hamas for the abductions. Aljazeera

German leader on Middle East tour Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is meeting Middle East leaders as part of a push to shore up support for renewed efforts for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Before heading to Riyadh on Sunday, Chancellor Merkel held talks in Egypt with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, and Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, who stressed the need to act quickly if progress is going to be made.
"He [Moussa] sees a window of opportunity basically this year," Merkel said after talks with Moussa. Aljazeera

Analysis: Will the real Mossad please stand up? In the classic joke, two Berlin Jews are sitting side by side on a park bench in the mid-1930s. One is reading a Jewish newspaper with growing concern, the other is chortling over a Nazi Party newspaper.

The first one scolds him, "It's bad enough you're reading that anti-Semitic rag, but you're laughing also?" His friend answers, "If I read your paper, all I get is here a Jew was killed, there a synagogue was torched, in this city Jewish shops were plundered. Instead I read this paper in which the Jews have all the money and rule the world."

This joke comes to mind after reading the various reports on the Institute for Intelligence and Special Roles, more commonly known as the Mossad. From American publications we learned that the Mossad had bumped off a senior Iranian nuclear physicist, apparently right within a uranium plant in Isfahan.

In Cairo, an Egyptian student was arrested for working for the Mossad over the last five and a half years in Turkey and Canada, together with a whole ring of agents.

And here back home, Israel's largest newspaper ran a magazine feature over the weekend portraying the Mossad as an organization in decline, that hasn't delivered the goods for the last 18 years, its hierarchy split through petty rivalry and its head exercising an almost Faustian control over the prime minister.

So who are they really? The Jerusalem Post

Crime Down, But Europeans Still Feel Threatened European citizens feel the crime rate has dropped in the last decade but about one person in three is still concerned about personal safety in the streets, according to a survey released Monday.

Fifteen percent of Europeans questioned said they had been the victim of a common crime -- including 10 categories of crime ranging from bicycle theft to burglary -- in 2004, compared to 19 percent in 2000 and 21 percent in 1995.

But the crime, safety and security survey, which studied people's perceptions about crime, found that about 30 percent of citizens in 18 EU countries were afraid of burglary and do not feel safe on the streets. Deutsche Welle