The beauty of the Internet is getting to say exactly what you want in a public forum, right?(Well that and stalking ex-boyfriends and shopping at work, but I digress.) The ability to speak one's mind in bytes and blips has
landed one blogger with a jail sentence for extremism. A Russian man who called the local police “scum” and calling for the clean-up of the force he blogged that the police should be burned in the town square twice a day. For this posting, was convicted of “inciting hatred or enmity” and given a one-year suspended sentence.
Money could very well be the root of all evil — though in the latest study of corrupt countries, it's actually the lack of money that sparks trouble. The new report by Transparency International
found that in two-fifths of the world's nations, corruption continues to intensify — a trend that can be traced to economic realities. In the countries found to be the most corrupt, 40 percent are classified by the World Bank as low income.
Transparency International's rankings range on a scale from 10 (on the up-and-up) to 1 (rampant corruption).
Could this be the good news from Iraq that we've been waiting for. After five years of struggle, Iraq may be holding the line on two major fronts: al-Qaeda and its finances. The positive news is buoyed this morning by the report that Iraq
may agree to a timetable for US withdrawal.
In the
latest bout of violence Sri Lanka has seen since the
ceasefire broke in January, 27 Tamil Tiger rebels and two government soldiers have been killed on the frontlines of their brutal civil war. This bloodshed coincides with an attack on a journalist and a British High Commission official from unknown assailants. The country's situation isn't often the lead story on Countdown but the mounting death toll makes it impossible to ignore.
Part of the reason for the media's silence is that it's a country that's not only dangerous for its citizens, but the media trying to report on the situation.
She looks so happy checking her email in her Ikea-esque room. Too bad if she was actually in Sweden, she'd be hopping mad that her government was checking her email for her. A new law that provides the Swedish government
the right to read all emails and listen to all phone calls crossing the country’s borders has outraged its citizens — who've harnessed build-your-own-irony and filed 2 million protests — online.
The building schedule for skyscrapers and a memorial planned for New York City's Ground Zero have been tossed out by the World Trade Center owners, due to unrealistic goals and rising costs.
Planners
will announce a new timetable this September, seven years after the Twin Towers fell, according to BBC. Officials previously promised that the Freedom Tower, set to replace the destroyed towers while taking the title of the nation's tallest building, would be complete in 2006, then 2011, and finally in 2013.
Planners promise that the next date will be realistic, rather than emotional.
It was a small town overrun by meth, until a new sheriff came to town — a federal agent who immediately started ransacking houses, cuffing people and naming names. It seemed like the town of Gerald, MO, known as "a meth capital of the United States" was getting a big makeover of the law and order variety. Except for one tiny problem: the "law" part of that equation wasn't exactly legal.
Known by the locals as "Sergeant Bill,"
the new officer assured residents that no search warrants were needed because he worked for the Feds.
Despite previous confirmation that it would
award exceptional no-bid contracts to Western oil giants, Iraq just announced that it has failed to sign the deals. Meanwhile, American officials
have confirmed that the Bush Administration was directly involved in the creation of the contracts, as American advisers led by a State Department team directly advised Iraqi officials. But today, Iraq announced that it
failed to finalize the deals as expected, because the oil companies "refused to offer consultancy based fees as they wanted a share of the oil."
American government lawyers and private sector consultants provided the Iraqi Oil Ministry sample contracts, and offered detailed suggestions during the drafting process.
Today the US Army is releasing a 669-page account of their role in the Iraq war and occupation entitled On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign and it stands to be a tell-all page-turner. Although unclassified, the book is the
Army’s chance to honestly tell the story of one of the most controversial periods in its history and accompanies an ever-expanding canon regarding the problems the US faced in their Iraq adventure.
Based on 200 interviews conducted by military historians, it includes long quotations from active or recently retired Army officers.
Congress will withhold $5.8 billion in New Orleans flood-defense funding because Louisiana
has not offered the $1.8 billion match necessary to trigger federal funds. The Army Corps of Engineers will not go through with levee and other construction projects necessary to prevent another Hurricane Katrina.
Louisiana, one of the poorest states in the nation, wants the feds to give the state 30 years to pay their share.
