Person of the year : Mark Zuckerberg.

For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

Mark Zuckerberg

By Lev Grossman Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010

On the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was leading a meeting in the Aquarium, one of Facebook's conference rooms, so named because it's in the middle of a huge work space and has glass walls on three sides so everybody can see in. Conference rooms are a big deal at Facebook because they're the only places anybody has any privacy at all, even the bare minimum of privacy the Aquarium gets you. Otherwise the space is open plan: no cubicles, no offices, no walls, just a rolling tundra of office furniture. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, who used to be Lawrence Summers' chief of staff at the Treasury Department, doesn't have an office. Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO and co-founder and presiding visionary, doesn't have an office.

The team was going over the launch of Facebook's revamped Messages service, which had happened the day before and gone off without a hitch or rather without more than the usual number of hitches. Zuckerberg kept the meeting on track, pushing briskly through his points — no notes or whiteboard, just talking with his hands — but the tone was relaxed. Much has been made of Zuckerberg's legendarily awkward social manner, but in a room like this, he's the Silicon Valley equivalent of George Plimpton. He bantered with Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, a director of engineering who ran the project. (Boz was Zuckerberg's instructor in a course on artificial intelligence when they were at Harvard. He says his future boss didn't do very well. Though, in fairness, Zuckerberg did invent Facebook that semester.) Apart from a journalist sitting in the corner, no one in the room looked over 30, and apart from the journalist's public relations escort, it was boys only. (See pictures inside Mark Zuckerberg's inner circle.)

The door opened, and a distinguished-looking gray-haired man burst in — it's the only way to describe his entrance — trailed by a couple of deputies. He was both the oldest person in the room by 20 years and the only one wearing a suit. He was in the building, he explained with the delighted air of a man about to secure ironclad bragging rights forever, and he just had to stop in and introduce himself to Zuckerberg: Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, pleased to meet you.

They shook hands and chatted about nothing for a couple of minutes, and then Mueller left. There was a giddy silence while everybody just looked at one another as if to say, What the hell just happened?

It's a fair question. Almost seven years ago, in February 2004, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges." This year, Facebook — now minus the the — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for 1 out of 4 American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day. (See a Zuckerberg family photo album.)

What just happened? In less than seven years, Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest, behind only China and India. It started out as a lark, a diversion, but it has turned into something real, something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale. We are now running our social lives through a for-profit network that, on paper at least, has made Zuckerberg a billionaire six times over.

Facebook has merged with the social fabric of American life, and not just American but human life: nearly half of all Americans have a Facebook account, but 70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. It's a permanent fact of our global social reality. We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here. (See pictures of Facebook's overseas offices.)

Zuckerberg is part of the last generation of human beings who will remember life before the Internet, though only just. He was born in 1984 and grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., the son of a dentist — Painless Dr. Z's slogan was, and is, "We cater to cowards." Mark has three sisters, the eldest of whom, Randi, is now Facebook's head of consumer marketing and social-good initiatives. It was a supportive household that produced confident children. The young Mark was "strong-willed and relentless," according to his father Ed. "For some kids, their questions could be answered with a simple yes or no," he says. "For Mark, if he asked for something, yes by itself would work, but no required much more. If you were going to say no to him, you had better be prepared with a strong argument backed by facts, experiences, logic, reasons. We envisioned him becoming a lawyer one day, with a near 100% success rate of convincing juries."

To learn more about the extended version of this article, exclusively available on Amazon Kindle, go to time.com/expandedpoy

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source : Time

Only Connect Essay

By Richard Stengel Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010

"On or about December 1910, human character changed."
— Virginia Woolf, 1924

She was exaggerating — but only a little. Woolf saw a fundamental shift in human relations taking place at the beginning of the 20th century "between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children." Those changes, she predicted, would bring about transformations in every sphere of life, from religion to politics to human behavior. Few would say she got it wrong.

A century later, we are living through another transition. The way we connect with one another and with the institutions in our lives is evolving. There is an erosion of trust in authority, a decentralizing of power and at the same time, perhaps, a greater faith in one another. Our sense of identity is more variable, while our sense of privacy is expanding. What was once considered intimate is now shared among millions with a keystroke.

More than anyone else on the world stage, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is at the center of these changes. Born in 1984, the same year the Macintosh computer was launched, he is both a product of his generation and an architect of it. The social-networking platform he invented is closing in on 600 million users. In a single day, about a billion new pieces of content are posted on Facebook. It is the connective tissue for nearly a tenth of the planet. Facebook is now the third largest country on earth and surely has more information about its citizens than any government does. Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is its T-shirt-wearing head of state. (See portraits of TIME's 2010 Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg.)

Evolutionary biologists suggest there is a correlation between the size of the cerebral neocortex and the number of social relationships a primate species can have. Humans have the largest neocortex and the widest social circle — about 150, according to the scientist Robin Dunbar. Dunbar's number — 150 — also happens to mirror the average number of friends people have on Facebook. Because of airplanes and telephones and now social media, human beings touch the lives of vastly more people than did our ancestors, who might have encountered only 150 people in their lifetime. Now the possibility of connection is accelerating at an extraordinary pace. As the great biologist E.O. Wilson says, "We're in uncharted territory."

All social media involve a mixture of narcissism and voyeurism. Most of us display a combination of the two, which is why social media are flourishing faster and penetrating deeper than any other social development in memory. Social media play into the parts of human character that don't change, even while changing the nature of what once seemed immutable. (See pictures of Facebook's overseas offices.)

Like two of our runners-up this year, Julian Assange and the Tea Party, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have a whole lot of veneration for traditional authority. In a sense, Zuckerberg and Assange are two sides of the same coin. Both express a desire for openness and transparency. While Assange attacks big institutions and governments through involuntary transparency with the goal of disempowering them, Zuckerberg enables individuals to voluntarily share information with the idea of empowering them. Assange sees the world as filled with real and imagined enemies; Zuckerberg sees the world as filled with potential friends. Both have a certain disdain for privacy: in Assange's case because he feels it allows malevolence to flourish; in Zuckerberg's case because he sees it as a cultural anachronism, an impediment to a more efficient and open connection between people.

At 26, Zuckerberg is a year older than our first Person of the Year, Charles Lindbergh — another young man who used technology to bridge continents. He is the same age as Queen Elizabeth when she was Person of the Year, for 1952. But unlike the Queen, he did not inherit an empire; he created one. (The Queen, by the way, launched a Facebook page this year.) Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

See pictures inside a Facebook server farm.

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WikiLeaks' advocates are wreaking 'hacktivism'

Falkenrath Says Corporate Moves Versus WikiLeaks Valid

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Falkenrath, a principal at the Chertoff Group and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, discusses decisions by corporations, like MasterCard Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., to suspend use of their brands by WikiLeaks, which released thousands of secret U.S. military and State Department documents. Falkenrath speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg) (Bloomberg)

WikiLeaks' advocates are wreaking 'hacktivism'

By Ian Shapira and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 12, 2010
In England, a 26-year-old advertising agency employee caters to multinational clients but on the side has been communicating with a secretive band of strangers devoted to supporting WikiLeaks.

Halfway around the world, a 24-year-old in Montana has used a publicly available - and, according to security experts, suddenly popular - software program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon with the goal of shutting down Web sites of WikiLeaks' perceived enemies.

Since releasing a vast cache of diplomatic cables this month, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has been the focus of intense criticism: for divulging classified materials, embarrassing the U.S. government and potentially endangering lives. But it has also engendered the frenzied support of an expanding and loosely defined global collective that seems intent on speaking out - and in some cases waging war on WikiLeaks' behalf.

The most prominent of those groups is known as Anonymous, which this past week sought to disable the Web sites of several U.S. companies as part of what it called Operation Payback.WikiLeaks has also drawn the support of traditional civil rights organizations and advocacy groups, which see the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks as an important test of U.S. commitment to freedom of the Internet.

Several groups have expressed dismay over recent statements by U.S. politicians suggesting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be branded an international terrorist or perhaps even assassinated. In a series of ads to be published in U.S. newspapers this week, the Australian activist group GetUp calls on Washington to "stand up for our shared democratic principles of the presumption of innocence and freedom of information."

But it is the activities of Anonymous and its members that have caused the greatest stir online. In addition to launching "denial of service" attacks on various Web sites, the group's members have issued open letters in support of WikiLeaks and sought to drum up support for Assange as Time magazine's "Person of the Year." (By Sunday, he was in the No. 1 spot in Time's poll, with nearly 400,000 votes.)

When contacted through Twitter, Anonymous members said in recent days they have been driven by fears of civil rights intrusions and totalitarian futures.

"Whether the fear is logical or not, I see a lot of aspects of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley's dystopias coming into play in a lot of the U.S. government's policies," said the Montana man, who said he was a staffer at a group home for mentally disabled adults.

The man, who declined to be named because he said he feared arrest, compared the attacks on U.S. companies' Web sites - known to some as "hacktivism" - to earlier versions of civil protests: "It was like the sit-ins during the 1960s when you had college students taking up space in restaurants."

Now, Anonymous is helping a wider audience comb through the WikiLeaks documents in a new campaign called Operation Leakspin. On the social media Web site Reddit, the Montana member of Anonymous said he helps moderate a "sub-Reddit" section where users sift through various leaked State Department cables. Reddit users post comments, vote on which cables are the most revelatory and click back to WikiLeaks' site to view the entire cable.

The Montana man said Reddit allows the Anonymous movement, whose members chat with one another on hard-to-find servers and in instant message rooms, to influence a broader readership.

"Rather than putting these cables on our own server, we're making it more available to everyone. We got everyone's attention with the distributed denial of service attacks, so now we're looking more at what's in the leaks," he said. "The call now is to stop the attacks. I didn't do much of those. I wasn't one of the people who thought it was necessary, but what I think doesn't matter. The majority has to think it."

It's unclear how many people consider themselves as part of the Anonymous movement. Various Twitter groups seemingly affiliated with the organization provide rough estimates of its influence: Anonops has nearly 10,000 followers; Operation Leakspin has more than 1,300 followers; Anonymous Operations has about 1,200 followers.

The group achieved some infamy two years ago when WikiLeaks published the private emails of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and said it received the files from Anonymous.

Anonymous members meet on other Web sites, whose addresses are publicized on Twitter or elsewhere. They issue announcements on www.anonops.blogspot.com , featuring information about the locations and times of upcoming demonstrations supporting Assange in London or at a local courthouse.

"PROTEST!" reads one headline on the Web site, announcing a demonstration on Tuesday outside the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London. "Julian Assange will be appearing at court for a bail hearing please come and make your voice heard!"

On anonymousfreedom.org , members urge people to go on Reddit and focus on particular countries: "We are, at the moment, particularly interested in china and iran!" the site says, directing people to cables between the State Department and overseas embassies regarding sales of Chinese sales of weapons to Iran; or to Kenya against Somalia.

In England, the 26-year-old ad agency employee said he communicates with fellow Anonymous members on hard-to-find Internet Relay Chat rooms where hundreds of users can talk to one another without disclosing their identities. The movement, he said, is inspired by many literary sources, including science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and his "Foundations" series about the future.

"The whole Asimov series is about the lack of transparency, but after time, everything becomes clear," he said. "A lot of the people in Anonymous have grown up with the Internet and see a future where the Internet is cut back, where we have no net neutrality, and there are different tiers of service and it isn't free to all.''

The English member of Anonymous guided a Post reporter to a chat room of fellow members who had nicknames like "steerpike," "pheadanon" and "Grommell."

There, on a collaborative site called Piratepad.net, Anonymous members tapped out their reasons for defending WikiLeaks. "We've seen the power the Internet can have in organizing the masses," one member said. "Look at the protests in Iran. I fight for wikileaks because I don't want to live in a future where people cannot talk about dissent without attracting the notice of government bouncers in black suits."

Another person revealed a more ulterior motive in the Piratepad chat room: "The most important result from doing these attacks is the media exposure," the Anonymous member wrote. "It does provide somewhat of a rush, and it is very empowering to note how many people are passionate about their freedom. We are here for exposure, period, NOT damage."

shapirai@washpost.com warrickj@washpost.com

The Washington Post

how bees see world in UV

Database shows how bees see world in UV

By Neil Bowdler Science reporter, BBC News
11 December 2010

Creeping Zinnia as we see it (left) and with UV shades made visible (right). The petals appear two-toned to bees, the concentric colours drawing them towards the nectar

Researchers are being offered a glimpse of how bees may see flowers in all their ultra-violet (UV) glory.

The Floral Reflectance Database (FReD) was created by researchers at Imperial College London and Queen Mary, University of London.

It enables researchers to "see" plant colours through the eyes of bees and other pollinating insects.

Bees have different colour detection systems from humans, and can see in the UV spectrum.

Details of the free database are published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

"This research highlights that the world we see is not the physical or the 'real' world - different animals have very different senses, depending on the environment the animals operate in," said Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

"Much of the coloured world that's accessible to bees and other animals with UV receptors is entirely invisible for us. In order to see that invisible part of the world, we need this special machinery."

How a cactus appears in UV light

The researchers collected what's called "spectroreflective" measurements of the petals and leaves of a large number of different plants. These measurements show the colour of plants across both the visible and invisible spectrum.

Users of the database can then calculate how these plants appear to different pollinating insects, based on studies of what different parts of the spectrum different species see.

Scientists have inferred what colours insects see by inserting microelectrodes into their photoreceptors, and by using less invasive behavioural studies.

Seeing the world as insects may see it can reveal "landing strips" which are invisible to the human eye. These act to guide insects to the nectar they feed on.

These landing strips might take the form of concentric circles of colour or dots.

"Quite often, you will find in radial symmetrical patterns that there is a central area which is differently coloured. In other flowers there are also dots in the centre which indicate where there is basically an orifice for the bee to put in its tongue to extract the goods."

Greenhouse use

But what is the point of such a tool beyond giving researchers an insect's view?

Professor Chittka says seeing these invisible colours may have commercial applications in the greenhouse and beyond.

"Every third bite that you consume at the dinner table is the result of insect pollinators' work. In order to utilise insects for commercial pollination purposes, we need to understand how insects see flowers.

"We need to understand what kind of a light climate we need to generate in commercial glass houses to facilitate detection of flowers by bees."

Co-author Professor Vincent Savolainen, from Imperial College London, says the database also offers us new perspectives on how plant colour evolved.

"We hope this work can help biologists understand how plants have evolved in different habitats, from biodiversity hotspots in South Africa to the cold habitats of northern Europe," he says.

"FReD's global records may show how flower colour could have changed over time, and how this relates to the different insects that pollinate them, and other factors in their local environment."

Source : BBC

China anger at 'farce' of Liu Xiaobo Nobel Peace Prize

10 December 2010 Source : BBC

China has said the awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is a "political farce".

China's foreign ministry said the move by the prize committee in Oslo "does not represent the wish of the majority of the people in the world".

There were standing ovations at the ceremony in Norway for Mr Liu, who was represented only by an empty chair.

The committee's chairman called for the immediate release of the dissident.

Thorbjorn Jagland praised China for lifting millions of people out of poverty, calling it an "extraordinary achievement".

But he warned China that its new status as a leading world power meant Beijing "must regard criticism as positive".

In response, the foreign ministry in Beijing said in a statement: "We resolutely oppose any country or any person using the Nobel Peace Prize to interfere with China's internal affairs or infringe upon China's legal sovereignty."

China says that Mr Liu is a criminal, and insists that giving him a prize is an insult to China's judicial system.

Beijing has also waged a campaign in recent weeks to discredit the Nobel prize.

'China's Mandela'

During the award ceremony in Oslo, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read out a statement that Mr Liu had made in court during his trial in December 2009.

"I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future, free China," said the statement. *** see below

"For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme."

Honouring the new laureate, Mr Jagland placed the Nobel diploma on the empty chair marking Mr Liu's absence.

He compared China's anger at the award to the outcry over peace prizes awarded to other dissidents of their times, including South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

He said Mr Liu was dedicating his prize to "the lost souls from 4 June", those who died in the pro-democracy protests on that date in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

"We can say (Mr) Liu reminds us of Nelson Mandela," he said. The former South African president received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

The UN says it had information that China detained at least 20 activists ahead of the ceremony.

A further 120 cases of house arrest, travel restriction, forced relocation and other acts of intimidation have been reported.

The BBC's English and Chinese language websites have been blocked, and BBC TV coverage was blacked out inside China during the ceremony.

Mr Liu, one of China's leading dissidents, is serving an 11-year sentence in a jail in north-east China for state subversion.

Police are stationed outside his home in Beijing where his wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest.

Chinese pressure

Geir Lundestad, the director of the Nobel committee, said 48 foreign delegations attended the Oslo ceremony, 16 countries - including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - turned down the invitation and the Chinese returned their invitation unopened.

Analysts say many of those who stayed away did so as a result of Chinese pressure.

However, Serbia - which had previously said it would not attend - announced on Friday that it would be sending a representative.

Beijing had sought to prevent anyone travelling from China to Oslo to collect the prize on Mr Liu's behalf.

The BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Oslo says that to the Nobel committee, Liu Xiaobo symbolises a message it was keen to send to China - that its growing economic strength and power do not exempt it from universal standards of human rights.

On the other hand, China said the committee had chosen a criminal convicted under Chinese law to serve the interests of certain Western countries, our correspondent says.

Charter 08

Liu Xiaobo first came to prominence when he took part in the Tiananmen protests.

He was sent to prison for nearly two years for his role, and has been a critic of the Chinese government ever since.

He was given the 11-year prison sentence in December 2009 for inciting the subversion of state power, a charge which came after he co-authored a document known as Charter 08.

The document calls openly for political reforms in China, such as a separation of powers and legislative democracy.

This year marks the first time since 1936 that the Nobel Peace Prize, now worth $1.5m (£950,000), was not handed out.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Thursday again called for Mr Liu to be released "as soon as possible".

Last year's peace prize winner, US President Barack Obama, has also called for his release.

As well as putting Liu Xia, the Nobel laureate's wife, under house arrest, the authorities have put pressure on other activists and dissidents.

Some have been prevented from leaving the country, while others have been forced to leave their homes for the next few days, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

One of those to disappear, it said, was Zhang Zuhua, the man who co-wrote Charter 08.

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Why China considers Liu Xiaobo a threat

• 1989: leading activist in Tiananmen Square protests for democratisation; jailed for two years
• 1996: spoke out against China's one-party system; sent to labour camp for three years
• 2008: co-author of Charter 08, calling for a new constitution, an independent judiciary and freedom of expression
• 2009: jailed for subversion for 11 years; verdict says he "had the goal of subverting our country's people's democratic dictatorship and socialist system. The effects were malign and he is a major criminal".

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At the scene

Mike Wooldridge BBC News, Oslo

---

An image of Liu Xiaobo is being thrown on to the facade of the Grand Hotel in the centre of Oslo as night falls, after the city honoured this year's Nobel peace laureate.

For the first time in more than 70 years the peace prize ceremony has been essentially symbolic, with the recipient in jail and none of the close family members who would be entitled to receive the prize on his behalf allowed to leave China.

The most symbolic moment of all was when the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, placed Liu Xiaobo's medal on a chair on the podium that had been deliberately left empty.

It has been one of the most controversial peace prizes for years. To China, the award has diminished this prestigious prize. But to the Nobel committee, China's diplomatic offensive over the award only justifies the choice of Liu Xiaobo as a deserving winner.

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***

I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement

Liu Xiaobo

Translation by HRIC, based on a translation by J. Latourelle.

[Chinese / 中文]

December 23, 2009

In the course of my life, for more than half a century, June 1989 was the major turning point. Up to that point, I was a member of the first class to enter university when college entrance examinations were reinstated following the Cultural Revolution (Class of ’77). From BA to MA and on to PhD, my academic career was all smooth sailing. Upon receiving my degrees, I stayed on to teach at Beijing Normal University. As a teacher, I was well received by the students. At the same time, I was a public intellectual, writing articles and books that created quite a stir during the 1980s, frequently receiving invitations to give talks around the country, and going abroad as a visiting scholar upon invitation from Europe and America. What I demanded of myself was this: whether as a person or as a writer, I would lead a life of honesty, responsibility, and dignity. After that, because I had returned from the U.S. to take part in the 1989 Movement, I was thrown into prison for “the crime of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement.” I also lost my beloved lectern and could no longer publish essays or give talks in China. Merely for publishing different political views and taking part in a peaceful democracy movement, a teacher lost his lectern, a writer lost his right to publish, and a public intellectual lost the opportunity to give talks publicly. This is a tragedy, both for me personally and for a China that has already seen thirty years of Reform and Opening Up.

When I think about it, my most dramatic experiences after June Fourth have been, surprisingly, associated with courts: My two opportunities to address the public have both been provided by trial sessions at the Beijing Municipal Intermediate People’s Court, once in January 1991, and again today. Although the crimes I have been charged with on the two occasions are different in name, their real substance is basically the same—both are speech crimes.

Twenty years have passed, but the ghosts of June Fourth have not yet been laid to rest. Upon release from Qincheng Prison in 1991, I, who had been led onto the path of political dissent by the psychological chains of June Fourth, lost the right to speak publicly in my own country and could only speak through the foreign media. Because of this, I was subjected to year-round monitoring, kept under residential surveillance (May 1995 to January 1996) and sent to Reeducation-Through-Labor (October 1996 to October 1999). And now I have been once again shoved into the dock by the enemy mentality of the regime. But I still want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by the convictions I expressed in my “June Second Hunger Strike Declaration” twenty years ago—I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies. Although there is no way I can accept your monitoring, arrests, indictments, and verdicts, I respect your professions and your integrity, including those of the two prosecutors, Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing, who are now bringing charges against me on behalf of the prosecution. During interrogation on December 3, I could sense your respect and your good faith.

Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.

Everyone knows that it was Reform and Opening Up that brought about our country’s development and social change. In my view, Reform and Opening Up began with the abandonment of the “using class struggle as guiding principle” government policy of the Mao era and, in its place, a commitment to economic development and social harmony. The process of abandoning the “philosophy of struggle” was also a process of gradual weakening of the enemy mentality and elimination of the psychology of hatred, and a process of squeezing out the “wolf’s milk” that had seeped into human nature.¹ It was this process that provided a relaxed climate, at home and abroad, for Reform and Opening Up, gentle and humane grounds for restoring mutual affection among people and peaceful coexistence among those with different interests and values, thereby providing encouragement in keeping with humanity for the bursting forth of creativity and the restoration of compassion among our countrymen. One could say that relinquishing the “anti-imperialist and anti-revisionist” stance in foreign relations and “class struggle” at home has been the basic premise that has enabled Reform and Opening Up to continue to this very day. The market trend in the economy, the diversification of culture, and the gradual shift in social order toward the rule of law have all benefitted from the weakening of the “enemy mentality.” Even in the political arena, where progress is slowest, the weakening of the enemy mentality has led to an ever-growing tolerance for social pluralism on the part of the regime and substantial decrease in the force of persecution of political dissidents, and the official designation of the 1989 Movement has also been changed from “turmoil and riot” to “political disturbance.” The weakening of the enemy mentality has paved the way for the regime to gradually accept the universality of human rights. In [1997 and] 1998 the Chinese government made a commitment to sign two major United Nations international human rights covenants,² signaling China’s acceptance of universal human rights standards. In 2004, the National People’s Congress (NPC) amended the Constitution, writing into the Constitution for the first time that “the state respects and guarantees human rights,” signaling that human rights have already become one of the fundamental principles of China’s rule of law. At the same time, the current regime puts forth the ideas of “putting people first” and “creating a harmonious society,” signaling progress in the CPC’s concept of rule.

I have also been able to feel this progress on the macro level through my own personal experience since my arrest.

Although I continue to maintain that I am innocent and that the charges against me are unconstitutional, during the one plus year since I have lost my freedom, I have been locked up at two different locations and gone through four pretrial police interrogators, three prosecutors, and two judges, but in handling my case, they have not been disrespectful, overstepped time limitations, or tried to force a confession. Their manner has been moderate and reasonable; moreover, they have often shown goodwill. On June 23, I was moved from a location where I was kept under residential surveillance to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau’s No. 1 Detention Center, known as “Beikan.” During my six months at Beikan, I saw improvements in prison management.

In 1996, I spent time at the old Beikan (located at Banbuqiao). Compared to the old Beikan of more than a decade ago, the present Beikan is a huge improvement, both in terms of the “hardware”— the facilities—and the “software”—the management. In particular, the humane management pioneered by the new Beikan, based on respect for the rights and integrity of detainees, has brought flexible management to bear on every aspect of the behavior of the correctional staff, and has found expression in the “comforting broadcasts,” Repentance magazine, and music before meals, on waking and at bedtime. This style of management allows detainees to experience a sense of dignity and warmth, and stirs their consciousness in maintaining prison order and opposing the bullies among inmates. Not only has it provided a humane living environment for detainees, it has also greatly improved the environment for their litigation to take place and their state of mind. I’ve had close contact with correctional officer Liu Zheng, who has been in charge of me in my cell, and his respect and care for detainees could be seen in every detail of his work, permeating his every word and deed, and giving one a warm feeling. It was perhaps my good fortune to have gotten to know this sincere, honest, conscientious, and kind correctional officer during my time at Beikan.

It is precisely because of such convictions and personal experience that I firmly believe that China’s political progress will not stop, and I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme. I also hope that this sort of progress can be reflected in this trial as I await the impartial ruling of the collegial bench—a ruling that will withstand the test of history.

If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it has always been. Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.

My dear, with your love I can calmly face my impending trial, having no regrets about the choices I’ve made and optimistically awaiting tomorrow. I look forward to [the day] when my country is a land with freedom of expression, where the speech of every citizen will be treated equally well; where different values, ideas, beliefs, and political views . . . can both compete with each other and peacefully coexist; where both majority and minority views will be equally guaranteed, and where the political views that differ from those currently in power, in particular, will be fully respected and protected; where all political views will spread out under the sun for people to choose from, where every citizen can state political views without fear, and where no one can under any circumstances suffer political persecution for voicing divergent political views. I hope that I will be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisitions and that from now on no one will be incriminated because of speech.

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.

In order to exercise the right to freedom of speech conferred by the Constitution, one should fulfill the social responsibility of a Chinese citizen. There is nothing criminal in anything I have done. [But] if charges are brought against me because of this, I have no complaints.

Thank you, everyone.

Femme fatale

Femme fatale - the cheat sheets

Wed, Dec 8, 2010

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator John Edwards lost her six-year battle with breast cancer on Tuesday. Her 32 years of marriage with Senator Edwards got ruined after he admitted to having an affair with actor/producer Rielle Hunter and also fathering her baby when she was his campaign aid during his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination. Elizabeth Edwards' two best-selling books "Resilience" and "Saving Graces" is all about her long battle with cancer and the scandal surrounding her husband. Here's a look at other the flings of other top personalities that fueled media frenzy all over the world.
Source : Yahoo




2
Next Photo Rielle Hunter with Frances Quinn, her 2-year-old daughter fathered by John Edwards, at her home. In an interview with GQ, Hunter, the mistress of former presidential candidate John Edwards, says she is helping him live "a life of truth" and the two remain in love even after their affair helped trigger his downfall from the pinnacle of U.S. politics.

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Next Photo An affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky almost cost Bill Clinton his presidency. Clinton had to undergo a humiliating ordeal and faced impeachment when Lewinsky let the cat out of the bag. However Clinton's marriage survived and Lewinsky later published a book - Monica's Story - which was authored by Andrew Morton - the famous biographer of late princess Diana.
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The world gaped when Tiger Woods, the ultimate 'clean' sportsman, admitted to 'transgressions'. Rachel Uchitel, the New York night club hostess "crashed" to fame from anonymity after Tiger was involved in a car accident near his home last year. Not just one, several women later claimed of having an affair with the top golfer.
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Actress Sangeeta Bijlani had a relationship with former cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin. Azhar later divorced his wife Naureen and married this former Miss India.
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Controversy's favourite Azhar was hit by another scandal recently. He was alleged of having an affair with badminton player Jwala Gutta. But Jwala denied of having any such affair with the former Indian cricket team captain.
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Azhar wasn't the only cricketer who was tainted by scandals. Ex-captain Sourav Ganguly also catered to gossip columnists and there were rumours about him having an affair with South India actress Nagma.
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Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is no stranger to scandals. He is alleged of having multiple affairs with young women. He was once accused by his wife of having inappropriate relationship with a teen model Noemi Letizia.
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   Russian PM Vladimir Putin has also been linked to a young gymnast who is only half his age. 27-year old Alina Kabaeva is a gymnast turned Russian bureaucrat who currently works for the Duma.

Tripura capital Agartala hosts northeast students national integration program

By ANI | ANI – Thu, Dec 9

Agartala, Dec.9 (ANI): Over 1500 students from eight northeastern states recently took part in a three-day-long Northeastern Students National Integration Movement program.

They also participated in a peace march in the city and raised slogans against militancy.

The Holy Cross Educational Foundation of Tripura organized the event with the theme - "Together towards tomorrow for peace".

"We have been able to bring about peace in the region and spread awareness on peace in the region. We have been able to educate students on the need for peace in the society," said Joe Paul, the coordinator of NESNIM.

The event had its share of singing competitions, cultural performances and interactive workshops.

Instead of competing with each other, participants from different regions and ethnic groups dressed in their traditional attires and performed with each other showcasing integration and amalgamation of different cultures at its best.

Hundreds of students took out a candle rally and took an oath to promote their cause.

"Through my experience at NESNIM, I have come to learn about how to make friends with people of other groups and communities and states that help me unite with other people," said Russna Lamint, a participant from Meghalaya.

Assamese participant Vaishali said: "It is a movement for peace and we all are from different parts of Northeast India. We have come here and are united to light the candle of peace, as we are the future of this country."

Integration programs like these will definitely help build better understanding among the youth of the region and will go a long way in giving a fillip to the development and prosperity of the region. (ANI)

Source : Yahoo News

Wikileaks' Julian Assange to fight Swedish allegations

Mr Assange has dismissed allegations against him as a smear campaign

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will fight attempts to take him to Sweden to face rape allegations, his lawyer said.

Mark Stephens told the BBC that legal moves against his client seemed to be a "political stunt" by a state that allowed US rendition flights.

He warned Wikileaks could release more secrets in a bid to protect itself.

A Swedish arrest warrant for Mr Assange was issued on Thursday. It comes amid the phased Wikileaks release of some 250,000 US diplomatic secret messages.

The warrant to interview the journalist - thought currently to be in the UK - concerns alleged sexual crimes during a visit to Sweden in August.

But Mr Stephens told the BBC's Andrew Marr that the entire case against Mr Assange had been dropped by Sweden's chief prosecutor in September.

He said it was only "after the intervention of a Swedish politician" that a new prosecutor in Gothenburg - not Stockholm, where his client and two women had been - began a new case.

It resulted in the current warrants, and an Interpol notice being issued. His client denies the allegations.

Mr Stephens said: "It does seem to be a political stunt.

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Julian Assange

• Born Queensland, Australia, 1971
• Convicted in early 1990s in Australia of computer hacking and fined
• Co-wrote influential hacking and media book Underground
• Created Wikileaks in 2006 as web-based "dead letterbox" for whistle-blowers
• Arrest warrant issued in Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual crimes, which he denies

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"A warrant was issued on Thursday by reports. We've asked for it. We've been ignored at this point."

He said he and his Swedish legal adviser had been trying to contact prosecutors since August and his client had tried to meet prosecutors to "restore his good name".

"He's only wanted for interview, why not have that interview by consent, rather than this show trial?" he added.

Mr Stephens warned that the organisation held further secret material which it regarded as a "thermo-nuclear device" to be released if it needs to protect itself.

Wikileaks is currently working through the publication of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, whose release has embarrassed the United States.

It has condemned the disclosures - including indiscreet descriptions of world leaders and instructions to spy at the UN - as an attack on the world community.

Asked by Andrew Marr if Mr Assange, who is in hiding, was in fear of his life, Mr Stephens said: "It's interesting to note people as high up the American tree as Sarah Palin have called for him to be hunted down by American special forces and assassinated.

"We've seen a number of suggestions that he should be assassinated, again from credible sources around the world.

"This is all about a man who is a journalist. He received, unbidden, an electronic brown envelope that journalists receive.

"This particular journalist has put it out. What they are doing is criminalising him, criminalising journalistic activity.

He said any attempt to take Mr Assange to Sweden could be a precursor to taking him on to the US, adding: "I'm really rather worried by the political motivations that appear to be behind this.

"It doesn't escape my attention that Sweden was one of those lickspittle states which used its resources and its facilities for rendition flights (US transport of terror suspects around the world for interrogation)."

Source : BBC

At a glance: Wikileaks cables

click the link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11914040

Click the image for enlarge size

Explanation of UFOs

Ball lightning 'may explain UFOs'

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

A fireball is caught on camera over Brisbane

Some UFO sightings could be explained by ball lightning and other atmospheric phenomena, claims Australian astrophysicist Stephen Hughes.

The scientist has made a detailed study of an unusual event in 2006 when large meteors were observed over Brisbane.

Their appearance occurred at the same time as a brilliant green object was seen to roll over nearby mountains.

Dr Hughes has put forward a theory linking the object - presumed to be ball lighting - to the fireballs.

His idea is that one of the fireballs may have momentarily triggered an electrical connection between the upper atmosphere and the ground, providing energy for the ball lightning to appear above the hills.

He has written up his explanation in a journal of the Royal Society.

Dr Hughes says the extraordinary episode, which occurred during a night of fine weather, is just the sort of happening that might lead some to think they had witnessed UFO activity.

"If you put together inexplicable atmospheric phenomena, maybe of an electrical nature, with human psychology and the desire to see something - that could explain a lot of these UFO sightings," he told BBC News.

Eyewitnesses were asked to draw what they saw. This is how graphic designer David Sawell recalled a fireball

The scientist, who is a senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, initiated the study after being called in by the local TV station to look over and explain photos of the fireballs captured by members of the public on camera phones.

Fireballs are exceptionally bright meteors and are produced by fragments of space rock larger than the sand-grain-sized particles responsible for shooting stars; but like shooting stars they cross the sky at great speed.

It seems at least three individual fireballs were seen on the night of 16 May 2006.

This photo gives a sense of the intense brightness of one of the fireballs

A subsequent survey organised by the university brought forward many more eyewitnesses, including a farmer who recalled seeing a luminous green ball rolling down a slope of the Great Divide, a mountainous ridge about 120km west of Brisbane.

This object described as being about 30cm in diameter appeared to jump over some rocks and follow the path of a metal fence for "some minutes". The farmer said he saw the green object come into view just after a fireball had passed overhead.

He thought at first he was witnessing a plane crash and called the police, but a search the following day found no wreckage.

Ball lightning seems an obvious explanation, says Dr Hughes. These bright, hovering spheres of light are not fully understood. They are known to be associated with thunderstorms, but not always, and there was certainly no electrical storm activity in the vicinity of the Great Divide.

Dr Hughes does not offer a new explanation for the causes of ball lightning, merely how enough energy might have been put into the ground to trigger it.

He proposes that the natural flow of current that exists between the upper-most reaches of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, and the ground was increased by the passage of the meteor that streamed charged particles and other conductive materials in its wake.

The ball lightning was seen to roll down the slope following the line of a wire fence

"Could it be that the meteor descending through the atmosphere, having passed through the ionosphere, actually created a transient conductive connection between the ionosphere and the ground, even if it was only for a few seconds? Was that enough to put charge into the ground, and then with the discharge form some kind of plasma ball above?

"Think of the ionosphere and the ground as the terminals on the battery and you put a wire between those two terminals and current flows, and literally you get a spark."

Other scientists have suggested that charges dissipating through the ground can create balls of glowing ionised gas above it.

Dr John Abrahamson from the University of Canterbury, NZ, championed the idea 10 years ago that ball lightning consisted of vaporised mineral grains kicked out of the soil by a conventional lightning strike, an idea later tested with some success by Brazilian researchers.

He described Dr Hughes' work as "relatively feasible" and something which made "interesting connections".

"There's a long way to go before everyone will be happy and satisfied that we have a full solution," he told BBC News.

Dr Hughes said his publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences was intended to start a debate.

"It's not a vigorous theory; it's more a suggestion that may be worth exploring," he said.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Source : BBC

Chinese leaders ordered Google hack, U.S. cable quotes source as saying

By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 4, 2010; 9:59 PM

A brazen series of computer intrusions into Google networks in China announced by the search engine company earlier this year were directed by the highest levels of the Chinese government, a "well-placed" Chinese source told U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing in January

The revelation was contained in a classified State Department cable, part of a cache of cables leaked to the site WikiLeaks and disclosed Saturday.

"A well-placed contact claims that the Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems," the cable said. "According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level."

The penetrations resulted in the theft of "significant" intellectual property, Google officials said. The company surprised many by publicly reporting the hacking, and further by saying its investigation found that the attacks originated in China. But the company stopped short of saying the attacks were directed by the government.

U.S. officials have not verified the report. "There is a single-source report that the attack was directed by the Chinese government," said a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "We have never been able to corroborate that."

Senior State Department officials raised concerns about the attack on multiple occasions and asked China to investigate, spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

China has said it would look into the allegations.

Many experts said then and now that an attack of this scale and sophistication was most likely directed by the Chinese government. The hacking affected more than 30 other large U.S. corporations in addition to Google.

"This was a big collection program - it was more than Google, so it was probably authorized by the standing committee," said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow and cyberpolicy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It was the equivalent of a presidential finding for covert action. The Chinese have been good at mixing economic and political espionage."

The contents of the January cable and others, if confirmed, would begin to pull back the curtain on the operation.

According to the January cable, a source told an embassy political officer that "the closely held Chinese government operations against Google had been coordinated out of the State Council Information Office," which reports directly to the Politburo Standing Committee, the nine most powerful members of the government.

The New York Times, which received access to the unredacted cables, reported Saturday that according to a May 18, 2009, cable, Li Changchun, a member of the standing committee, was disturbed to learn that he could conduct Chinese-language searches on Google's international site. When he Googled himself, he found "results critical of him," according to the cable.

According to the January cable, Li himself ordered up or helped coordinate the attack, the paper reported.

But the Times said that another person cited in the cable, who apparently is the source of the information on Li, acknowledged that Li "personally led a campaign against Google operations in China," but to his knowledge "had no role in the hacking attack."

According to the Times, the January cable states that the Google intrusions were coordinated with the oversight of Li and another Politburo member, Zhou Yongkang, China's top security official. Both Li's and Zhou's names were redacted from the memos posted by the two newspapers.

The January cable also cites a source as saying that the operations "against Google 'were one hundred percent' political in nature.' " Some analysts at the time speculated that the attacks were motivated by a desire to undermine Google in favor of Baidu, the Chinese search engine that is far less powerful but has far more market share in China.

Google spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker declined to comment. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request to comment.

After discovering the Chinese hacking, Google threatened to pull out of China unless officials agreed to let it run an uncensored search engine in the country.

In April, after failing to reach an agreement with authorities on the censorship issue, Google redirected its Google.cn search traffic to servers in Hong Kong. The company still has marketing, advertising and engineering operations in Beijing and Shanghai.

China has been probing and breaking into U.S. computer systems for the better part of a decade. One of the earliest intrusions reported was code-named Titan Rain - attacks by government-sponsored hackers, disclosed in 2005, that over a number of years stole massive amounts of data from military and other systems.

A November 2008 cable posted by WikiLeaks revealed that since late 2002, government organizations have been targeted by hackers in China using e-mail messages intended to fool recipients into downloading malicious software in an operation dubbed Byzantine Candor. That, in turn, is a part of a larger operation called Byzantine Hades, the cable stated.

partment of Energy, as well as private-sector networks. The goal, the cable said, is to "exfiltrate massive amounts of sensitive data from the networks."

In November 2008, Shanghai-based hackers linked to the Chinese military penetrated several computer systems of a commercial Internet service provider inside the United States. According to investigators, the hackers used the compromised systems to facilitate incursions into U.S. and foreign systems, including at least one U.S. government agency.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

The Washington Post

---------------------o-----------------------

China leadership 'orchestrated Google hacking'

Source : BBC

Google left the mainland after refusing China's demand to censor its searches

Senior Chinese figures were behind the hacking of Google earlier this year which forced the search engine to quit the country, leaked US cables suggest.

One cable, released by whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, cites a "well-placed" contact as saying the action against Google was "100% political".

A politburo member is said to have been angered after Googling his name and finding critical comments online.

The cable says it is unclear whether China's top leaders were involved.

Other cables show Beijing has been "extremely concerned" about the use of high-resolution satellite imagery on Google's mapping software, Google Earth.

In January, Google said it had been subjected to a "sophisticated cyber attack originating from China" - it said the e-mail accounts of human rights activists were among those hacked.

In the ensuing row over internet censorship, Google abandoned mainland China and moved its Chinese-language operations to Hong Kong.

The company did not say who it thought was responsible but the cables, released by Wikileaks and published on the Guardian website, show the company had repeatedly raised concerns about the issue.

'Forbidden fruit'

The BBC's Nick Childs says the allegations contained in the cables will reinforce both the perception that the Chinese government is highly sensitive about the internet and suspicions that it was behind the hacking attacks on Google.

The Main Leaks So Far

• Fears that terrorists may acquire Pakistani nuclear material
• Several Arab leaders urged attack on Iran over nuclear issue
• US instructs spying on key UN officials
• China's changing relationship with North Korea
• Yemen approved US strikes on militants
• Personal and embarrassing comments on world leaders
• Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with widespread corruption and bribery
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "paranoid and weak"
• Comments on the extent of alleged corruption in Afghanistan

One cable from the US embassy in Beijing cites a "well-placed contact" as claiming "that the Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems".

"According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level," it says.

The source, whose name is deleted from the text, told the US that the operations against Google were "100%" political in nature, not an attempt to reduce Google's influence in China in favour of domestic search engines, such as Baidu.

But the writer of the cable notes that it is "unclear whether President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao were aware of these actions" before Google publicly announced its concerns.

The cable also reports on alleged concern in the Chinese government that, by challenging official censorship of the internet, Google had made itself seem more appealing to Chinese net users and given the impression that the US and Google were working together "to undermine Chinese government controls of the internet"

"All of a sudden, XXXXXXXXXXXX continued, Baidu looked like a boring state-owned enterprise while Google "seems very attractive, like the forbidden fruit," it says.

In cable dated 18 May 2009, US diplomats quote a Chinese source as saying that "the root of the problem" was an unnamed member of the politburo standing committee who wanted Google to stop linking to its international site from its sanitised version, google.cn.

The politician is said to have "recently discovered that Google's worldwide site is uncensored, and is capable of Chinese language searches and search results". He reportedly carried out a search for his own name and found sites personally critical of him.

Google consistently refused to remove the link, citing its own anti-censorship principles, and eventually left the Chinese mainland.

The cable says that while the US can neither confirm nor deny the allegations against Beijing, "the potential for continuing escalation by the Chinese, assuming Google sticks to its guns - and the likelihood of loud US Congressional and public outcry if it caves - suggest a high-level USG [US government] response may be in order".

The following January, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China to fully investigate the hacking allegations.

"Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation," she said.

In India, owl's mythic power, pop culture presence fuels illegal trading

By Rama Lakshmi

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 5, 2010; 8:55 PM

IN MEERUT, INDIA Mehmood Ali is a carpenter by day and shaman by night. He says he heals people battling anxiety, sleeplessness, curses and misfortune.

The soft-spoken, 50-year-old Ali uses body parts of owls in his elaborate sorcery rituals for healing. Trade in owls was made illegal in India in 1972, but trafficking for such rituals is carried on clandestinely across the country.

In a crowded lane in the heart of the industrial town of Meerut, about 45 miles northeast of New Delhi, half a dozen small, dingy shops sell several species of caged birds as pets. The owls are not displayed like the other birds, and shopkeepers deny they sell them. But that's where Ali says he can get an owl for $250 and its nails and feathers for as little as $20.

An 18-year study of the illegal owl trade in India titled "Imperilled Custodians of the Night," published last month by the World Wildlife Fund, says, "Owls and their body parts are primarily used for black magic." It reports that the most popular owls for rituals among the 32 species that live on the Indian subcontinent are ones with prominent ear tufts, such as the rock eagle owl, or feather tufts that stick up like long ears, such as the brown fish owl. The most common owl in India, the spotted owlet, does not have those characteristics, so traders sometimes use latex to make a few feathers stand up to resemble horns.

The clientele are either from tribal areas, where the majority of people are superstitious and use both live and dead owls to ward off evil spirits, or from towns and cities, where demand is created by practicing shamans, or tantriks, as they are called. People turn to these practitioners for all sorts of problems, from marital to business to health, and even for setting a curse on another or releasing themselves from one.

"Owl is the king of the birds and has enormous powers. When I chant into an owl's nail and give it as a talisman, it cures sleeplessness and restlessness. When I chant into the feather from an owl's breast and make a talisman, then the owl speaks in your dream and shows you the way," said Ali with pride, baring his reddish, betel-stained teeth. "If you want to vanquish your enemy, then owl's blood and bones are used." He chants next to the live owl for hours by the river at night before the bird is purified and made effective for magical remedies.

India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said that more children were being given owls as pets because of the immensely popular books and movies about Harry Potter and his feathered companion, Hedwig. "There seems to be a strange fascination even among the urban middle classes for presenting their children with owls," he said.

Domestic research in owls has grown since the forest owlet, thought to be extinct, was rediscovered in India in 1997 by American ornithologists Ben F. King and Pamela C. Rasmussen.

"There is no scientific owl census in India, but ornithologists have reported in the past two decades that the chances of spotting an owl are becoming difficult," said Samir Sinha, head of India's branch of Traffic, the trade watchdog of the WWF. "The threat to the owl in India is twofold. One is the habitat loss because the old tree forests are shrinking. Then there is the hidden and dramatic threat of human superstitions driving the owl trade."

Sinha said that police seizures of smuggled owls show that India is a major supplier of the birds to neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh, where they are used in similar rituals. "Owls and owl parts are regularly seized in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand," he said.

The morbid and mysterious powers associated with them across civilizations have fueled the illegal trade in the region. An owl is the vehicle on which Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, travels and is often worshiped for bringing prosperity. Because the owls are nocturnal birds, they are associated with secret powers of the spirit or with death.

"Birds like owls are sold at a premium, brought in only following a specific request by a customer for use in black magic. Often they are delivered to the client's doorstep," the WWF report says. "Therefore such trade remains undocumented, as the sold specimens are secretly sacrificed."

It adds that by 2008, market prices of owls had risen up to 10 times the level of six years earlier and that there are at least 50 active selling hubs in India. Abrar Ahmed, the ornithologist who wrote the report, said prices rose due to a dwindling owl population and increased difficulty in hunting and trading since being made illegal.

"The book of owl rituals called 'Ullu Tantra' has about 150 formulas. The diversity of uses of owl body parts is so large that it takes a toll on the owl population and makes it vulnerable. Even owl tears and egg shells are listed," said Abrar. "The trade has picked up dramatically in recent years. People are turning to these kinds of superstitious beliefs to ward off misfortune. Classified black magic ads in daily newspapers in small towns routinely promise relief from urban stress, business loss and illnesses."

Before Diwali, the most auspicious Hindu festival of lights, in November, researchers noted a sharp spike in ritualistic sacrifice of owls to please the goddess Lakshmi. Owl eggs and eyeballs are used in folk recipes and potions by some tribal communities, and its meat is considered an aphrodisiac. Owls are used by some street performers, and parts are sold outside courthouses to people anxiously awaiting verdicts.

Recently, Mehmood Ali recalled buying a live owl for a ritual. But he dreamed that night that its parents came and warned him against killing the little owl.

"The parents of the owl said if I harm their child, they will curse my children too," he said.

The next morning, Ali released the little owl in the woods.

Source: The Washington Post

WikiLeaks off-limits to federal workers without clearance, memo says

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on most-wanted list

Interpol has placed the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks on its most-wanted list after Sweden issued an arrest warrant against him as part of a rape investigation. (The Associated Press)

___________________________O______________________

WikiLeaks off-limits to federal workers without clearance, memo says

Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 5, 2010; 9:10 PM

Obama administration officials reminded rank-and-file federal workers and contractors late Friday to steer clear of WikiLeaks, the controversial document-sharing Web site.

"Classified information, whether or not already posted on public Web sites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. government authority," officials warned.

The Office of Management and Budget sent the message in a memo addressed to agency general counsel, asking them to remind workers of existing restrictions on access to classified documents.

OMB Director Jacob Lew had already instructed departments and agencies to ensure that employees with access to classified information networks did not have more access than necessary and to restrict the use of removable media such as CDs or flash drives on such networks. Those orders promptedsome departments to issue warnings to employees.

Friday's memo states that workers and contractors must "use government information technology systems in accordance with agency procedures so that the integrity of such systems is not compromised."

The memo is meant to be adapted and then sent to each agency's workers.

It does not instruct agencies to block the WikiLeaks Web site.

The Defense Department has issued a similar reminder to military personnel and contractors, stating that viewing the documents violates military policy even though they may be available on public Web sites.

Employees and contractors who inadvertently accessed or downloaded any classified or sensitive information without prior authorization are reminded to contact agency information security offices, the memo said.

In a similar warning, college students considering careers with the federal government received ane-mail this week warning against reviewing classified information posted by the document-sharing Web site.

Career counselors at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs urged students not to post links to the documents or make comments on social media Web sites, including Facebook or Twitter.

"Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government," said an e-mail the office said it sent to students on the advice of an alumnus who works for the State Department.

But the employee's warning "does not represent a formal policy position," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Saturday.

"This sounds like an overly zealous employee," Crowley said in an e-mail. "Our focus is advising current employees not to download classified documents to an unclassified network.

"While we condemn what WikiLeaks has done, we cannot control what is done through private Internet accounts."

Source : The Washington Post

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WikiLeaks-revealed details of Russian Caucasus wedding are disputed, laughed off

By Kathy Lally

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 4, 2010; 9:59 PM

MOSCOW - It must have been the invitation of the season, that Caucasus wedding that was so memorably WikiLeaked the other day, and it resulted in such a titillating tale - replete with gold-bullion wedding gifts, awe-inspiring alcohol consumption and simmering cauldrons of sheep and cattle.

The author of that classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has not been identified, but another part of the story is coming clear: how he cadged the invitation to the wedding, a three-day event that Gadzhi Makhachev, head of Dagestan Oil, put on for his 19-year-old son in the North Caucasus city of Makhachkala.

Though the mesmerizing August 2006 dispatch was signed "Burns," the State Department has denied that it was written by the obvious suspect, Undersecretary William J. Burns, who was U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time.

Other denials are floating around as well.

This week, Makhachev was quoted by the Caucasian Knot news agency disputing various aspects of the cable: "There was a wedding of my son Dalgat and 200 of my relatives and friends were invited to the wedding. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov [who was described as having given the bride and groom a five-kilogram lump of gold] was not among them. There was nothing special about the wedding - just an ordinary Dagestani wedding.

"I don't have houses in Moscow, Paris or San Diego, and I have never driven a Rolls Royce."

What to believe?

Enver Kisriyev, quoted in the cable as the leading scholar of Dagestani society, recalls how the American got invited, but not his name. Turns out, the diplomat simply made it known he intended to visit Dagestan, a restive Muslim region bordering Chechnya where it is not uncommon for people to disappear. The wedding invitation was issued as something of a safe-conduct pass in a society that is deeply hospitable.

"I do remember the Americans wanted to go to Dagestan, but it's dangerous to go there," Kisriyev said in Moscow. "If Gadzhi made them his personal guests, they would be safe. So he invited them to his son's wedding."

Makhachev is a revered figure in Dagestan, as a glance at his Web site shows. A major Dagestani entertainer even wrote a song in his honor. It's in a local language, but somehow the sentiment is unmistakable.

Kisriyev laughs merrily at the American's account of the wedding. He says he heard that Kadyrov was certainly at the wedding, but he thinks the writer was overly dramatic with accounts of dancing children showered with hundred-dollar bills and lump-of-gold presents.

"I had so much fun when I read it," he said. "It was an American comic interpretation of an ordinary Dagestani wedding."

No harm done, he said, even though the cable's publication was horribly undiplomatic.

"It's slightly embarrassing for my guys and for the Americans," he said. "It's like seeing someone naked by accident. You'll get over it."

The American described the lezginka, the Caucasian dance, with great enthusiasm. It comes in many styles, from the decorous to the rowdy.

"There's absolutely nothing new in all these leaks," said Sergei Arutyunov, head of the Caucasus Department at the Institute of Ethnic Studies. "Maybe it's a revelation for you, but not for us."

And governments shouldn't even think of prosecuting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, he said.

"It's their job to make things confidential," he said, "and ours to find out what they say."

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Leaders in Afghanistan, Pakistan speak out against WikiLeaks information

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 4, 2010; 9:17 AM

KABUL - The Afghan president and the Pakistani prime minister on Saturday disputed the accuracy of derogatory information contained in leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, calling some of the allegations in the dispatches absurd.

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani said reports that the country's civilian leaders are subservient to military and intelligence chiefs are unfounded.

"I would request that you not trust Wikileaks," the prime minister said at a press conference in Kabul during his first official visit to the neighboring country.

"These are some of the views of junior [U.S.] officers. We should not even take them seriously."

The release on Sunday of the first batch of thousands of diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks, an online whistleblower group, has strained Washington's already tense relationships with leaders in Kabul and Islamabad.

The cables have added an irritant to bilateral relations with the two governments at a time when the Obama administration is trying to show that its Afghan war effort is on solid footing after nine years of missteps.

U.S. officials view Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan as crucial because the leadership of the Taliban and other extremist groups operate in safe havens the Pakistani government has little control over.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai pushed back on the notion that some of his cabinet members have been working behind the scenes with U.S. officials to reel in the president's sometimes erratic behavior.

A cable sent to Washington last February quotes Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal telling U.S. officials that Karzai was "an extremely weak man."

The dispatch said the minister felt Karzai "did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to him to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him. Whenever this happened, Karzai would immediately judge that person to be loyal and would reward him."

Karzai said the finance minister has assured him the information in the U.S. cable is inaccurate.

The cables have shed light on the extent to which the relationship between Karzai and Washington has deteriorated in recent years.

They also address Afghanistan's endemic corruption in excruciating detail.

Karzai mocked one of the most startling anecdotes in the cables: that authorities in the United Arab Emirates detected Afghan vice president Ahmad Zia Masood carrying $52 in cash during a trip to Dubai - an allegation Masood has denied.

"If you put $52 million in boxes, it will be at least 30 suitcases," Karzai said in a scornful tone. "Can someone carry 30 suitcases with him?"

The two leaders addressed each other warmly as they sought to portray the historically frayed relationship between the two nations as thawing.

"Whatever the intention was of Wikileaks, they helped the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Karzai said.

The official visit came a day after President Obama flew to Afghanistan for a three-hour trip. Obama and Karzai did not meet during the three-hour visit, which both leaders attributed to hazy weather that made it dangerous for Obama to fly from Bagram Airfield to the capital.

Has release of Wikileaks documents cost lives?

By Katie Connolly BBC News, Washington

Hillary Clinton called Wikileaks' latest release "an attack on the international community"

The latest release of Wikileaks documents - a trove of US diplomatic cables which offer, among other things, unflattering and candid assessments of world leaders - has deeply angered American officials.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wikileaks' actions undermined US foreign policy efforts and amounted to "an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conventions and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity".

New York Congressman Pete King has called for the US Attorney General to designate Wikileaks a terrorist organisation and to prosecute founder Julian Assange for espionage.

Much of the criticism of Wikileaks, though, revolves around the notion that releasing such information risks lives.

Identities of informants could be compromised, spies exposed, and the safety of human rights activists, journalists and dissidents jeopardised when information of their activities is made public, the argument goes.

US military officials contend that allowing enemies access to their strategic and operational documents creates a dangerous environment for American troops serving abroad.

On Saturday, US state department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote in a letter to Wikileaks that the most recent document dump "could place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals" as well as "ongoing military operations".

He accused Wikileaks of endangerment "without regard to the security and the sanctity of the lives your actions endanger".

But is there any real evidence of this peril?

Justification for secrecy

The problem for officials like Mr Koh is proving direct links between the information released and any loss of life.

After the release of an enormous haul of US defence department documents in August, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told the Washington Post: "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents."

Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg says silence puts lives at risk

But, he added: "There is in all likelihood a lag between exposure of these documents and jeopardy in the field."

After this latest release a Pentagon official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the material involved, told the McClatchy newspaper group that even three months later the US military still had no evidence that people had died or been harmed because of information gleaned from Wikileaks documents.

Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers which detailed government lies and cover-ups in the Vietnam War, is sceptical of whether the government really believes that lives are at stake.

He told the BBC's World Today programme that US officials made that same argument every time there was a potentially embarrassing leak.

"The best justification they can find for secrecy is that lives are at stake. Actually, lives are at stake as a result of the silences and lies which a lot of these leaks reveal," he said.

"The same charges were made against the Pentagon Papers and turned out to be quite invalid."

Unknowable effects

Mr Ellsberg noted that with this release, the newspapers involved co-operated with the US government to ensure that the information they published did not imperil lives.

---------------------------------

“Start Quote

I don't think it has been proven that this is dangerous to US troops, for instance. I haven't seen that case made very clearly”

End Quote Carne Ross Former UK ambassador to the UN

===============================================

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told the BBC that although his newspaper did not always agree with the advice of US authorities, it had carefully redacted the published documents to remove identifying information.

"Our hope is that we've done everything in our power to minimise actual damage," he said.

Carne Ross, a former UK diplomat at the United Nations, told the BBC that the effects of Wikileaks were largely unknowable at this point.

"I don't think it has been proven that this is dangerous to US troops, for instance. I haven't seen that case made very clearly," he said. "What I think this means is that we need to look at our own mechanisms for democratic accountability and foreign policy. We need to be much, much better."

One thing the experts appear to agree on is that the leaks will make it more difficult for US diplomats and human intelligence operatives to do their jobs. Although that does not present an immediate threat to American lives, strained international relations may create a more dangerous world.

"They embarrass governments with which the US co-operates," Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the leaks on the BBC's World Today programme.

"At the very least, they will make governments like Pakistan and Yemen and others, which are collaborating with the US in the battle against terrorism, more reluctant to co-operate.

"It's harming some of the vital activities that the US government, the UK government or others engage in, which are protecting us against terrorism."

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WikiLeaks watch: Where in the world is Julian Assange?

By Sam Sanders

Interpol "Wanted" page. (Nicholas Kamm /AFP/Getty Images)

Someone tweeted yesterday that they saw him in Manhattan. Ecuador was rumored to have offered him asylum. He teleconferenced from Jordan recently.

WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange has become our modern-day Carmen San Diego. Without the game show.

We've started a Google Map with Julian Assange hot spots throughout the globe. It's likely the list will grow. Or not. The Swedish Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Assange must appear before a magistrate in Stockholm to answer accusations of rape and sexual harassment brought by two Swedish women. And Interpol has added him to its most wanted list.

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WikiLeaks who gains? Clearly those charlatans masqueradi¬ng as statesmen and the clowns dressed as legislator¬s in the Washington Circus would want to put the boots to those who exposed them. Although the WikiLeaks contained little that was new about our mistrusted misleaders¬. They did ruffle a few feathers, bruised egos and might even undermine career prospects for the mentioned bureaurats and politician¬s. Leaks weren't news, who didn’t know that Italian was a philanderi¬ng buffoon, the Afghanista¬n crowd rivals the South Vietnamese Govt in corruption and various venalities¬, or we are in the process of delivering to Pakistan the same largess we gave to Cambodia? Of course Putin rose from the bloody cellars of the Lubyanka and remains murderous. For those whose trust in the honesty of the Saudi Arabians was shattered by the Leaks, it would be best to keep in mind the words of Geo W, “You can’t break an omelet if you’re going to be critical of eggs.” Aside from reducing catty remarks, the Leaks will have no consequenc¬e that is discernabl¬e in 6 months, except for one thing. They do provide a great opportunit¬y for those in public disservice¬, those enemies of transparen¬cy who wish to CYA. These folks will benefit from new laws that will further shield either their incompeten¬ce or corruption and in some cases both. Free no log-in editorial cartoons on the Circus and more http://ww.¬saintpeter¬ii.com